Unlimited brood chamber

[Kathyp]

i'm just trying to get the most growth and most honey from my hive.  i'd like to avoid swarming, but my primary goal is to build my hive as quickly and naturally as i can.  i had thought that leaving the brood chamber alone and adding supers would be best.  now it appears that that is not what most do.  in a wild hive, the "brood chamber" would not be disturbed?  the hive would build around it?  when they ran out of building room they swarm. 

so, now i'm a little confused :-)

[Finsky]

i'm just trying to get the most growth and most honey from my hive. 

 i'd like to avoid swarming, but my primary goal is to build my hive as quickly and naturally as i can. 


 

in a wild hive, the "brood chamber" would not be disturbed? 

Beekeeping's the best step forward was a movable frame. With it you may look into hive and arrange combs, change queen, reed bee stock , stop swarming and what ever.

Beekeeping is far from natural and the best what you may do is disturbe brood area and learn to understand what is happening in the hive during the year.

To nurse bees is compicated: watch diseases, signs of swarming, when to enlarge, when to extract....



.

[Scott Derrick]

Notice bolded text:

when you add the third deep, reason is that hive is getting too much bees or honey and pollen is filling combs.

*** If honey flow has started, I put third box topmost.
        - If there is too much honey in second box, I lift them up but in the middle of third box I move 3-4 brood frames.
           For honey they have 7-6 frames.
        - I don't touch into first box.
         - To second box I put 2-3 foundations between brood frames.
         - To third box I may put 2-3 foundations too.
         - To sides of second deep I put empty drawn combs.

REASON:  1) Around brood area I arrange more room for eggs.
              2) On sides empty room for pollen and nectar that bees feel that tey hace space
              3) Fillde frame up to periferia that bees need not handle honey any more.
              4) If there  is  old honey or winter sugar in frames, I put them between larva frames.
                  So bees unburden old pollen and honey and molbilize them. Brood will be in these combs later.

FOURTH BOX:

*** Summer is going on, and bees are more and let's hope, honey is coming in.
*** Next week when you add third box, you need to give more room.
*** If third box is full of brood, reverse the second and third box . Bees lift honey to fourth box from the area of brood.

*** This is time when yout ought to do swarming inspections.  During this job you may arrange frames, you may add foundations and keep free space for brood and honey. The lowest box is mostly for pollen.

**** !!! When you add emty super combs add them allways just over the brood area. Never mind if queen goes there and lay. When brood is capped you lift frames top and give new empty combs over brood area.

*** When you inspect for swarming, you may need fourth deep where you lift all food combs from sedonf and third box.

Some hive may gather 1,5 box pollen. That is valuable material and just arrange more room for laying. Mad pollen gatherers are often good brood raisers.

So Finsky are you saying that you never disturb the bottom brood chamber?
The Only movement of brood that you do is from the second chamber to the third...?
Did you mean when you add the fourth box or should the title of this section be "Third Box"?

You only move the brood around / above the bottom chamber?

Please clarify. 

Scott

[Finsky]

Notice bolded text:


]So Finsky are you saying that you never disturb the bottom brood chamber?

I do but very seldom.

The Only movement of brood that you do is from the second chamber to the third...?

No. That help at all to avoid excluder.  If frames are mostly full of honey, I lift them to topmost, which means to fourth or sixth, out of brood area. Bees fill emerged cells with nectar.

Did you mean when you add the fourth box or should the title of this section be "Third Box"?

When you have 3 or four box , it is same where are brood. The most important is to avoid swarming. When I put hives in nectar fields there should be 6-7 boxes. I put two weak hives together to get a big hive.

The result is that queen has 3 deep, topmost are capped honey frames and obove brood area tere are free combs for nectar.  When queen has those three deeps, she has no need to rise higher.

If frame has both brood and honey and I want to extract honey I put frames up to the tower or beside the wall.  So I isolate a frame that it do not invent queen to lay any more.

[Kirk-o]

You know that is the fun part about Beekeeping is reading all this stuff then going out and doing what works for YOU
good luck
kirko

[Michael Bush]

What you can do to expand the brood nest depends on the number of bees and the weather.  You don't wan to spread out the brood nest too far when the nights are cold and the cluster is small.  But putting empty frames (one at a time) in the brood nest when it's warmer to head off swarming has worked well for me.

The first step to an unlimited brood nest is to put the excluders in the garage for those rare occasions when they are useful for something.

[Scott Derrick]

I have not used excluders because I have heard that they don't help the hive to grow or to produce honey. I have heard them called honey excluder. I decided not to deal with them. One thing that was frustrating to me this year was that I had two deep and one medium hives setups and the queens was going up into all three and laying. When I wanted to take honey off there was a bunch of brood in the honey super. If I would have known what I know now I would have added a super and pulled those frames up to the super above and added empty frames to the super below.

I won't pretend that I have my head around the unlimited brood chamber method yet but I think I am getting the idea. What I am hearing is to leave the bottom chamber alone, move honey to the top most super and brood/honey frames one super above to the outer most positions then add empty frames for queen to lay in. 

I hope I have the gist of it.

Finsky...most of the weather that we have here in South Carolina is warm. We hardly ever have snow but we do have about 8 to 10 day when the temperature goes below freezing. I don't mess with the bees then. All I do is make sure they have stores about every two weeks. If the weather becomes rainy and cold for three of four days straight I check sooner.

In the summer it is hot and humid. Most day in the heart of summer will be in the upper 90's with 80 to 90% humidity. Enough heat to make you sweat through you bee suit. I have literally soaked through a suit doing removals on extreme hot days.

I have most of my hives in the deep woods. A decision that I feel was a mistake. I have a real problem with hive beetles. I need to get them out of the wood and into a wood line. I understand that direct sunlight should take care of most of my problem.

All the best.

Scott


Thanks

[Finsky]

I have not used excluders because I have heard that they don't help the hive to grow or to produce honey.

Exluders are use in many ways. I have not revealed very well how professionals do it.

One way is keep brooding free whole summer and for final harvest you ut exluder and separate brood and honey. I have tried it but the brood area for winter has become too small because weathers are here cold in August.

I am aware that in warm regions things are like we have in the midd summer, but we are talking from Jamaica to Alaska.

BUT still you have winter losses even you do not have winter and your queen escape to lay to super  because it has too cold downstairs

Something mysterious in southern beekeeping :mrgreen:

[Michael Bush]

It is a big advantage when doing an unlimted brood nest (no excluder version) to have all the same sized boxes.  When you find brood you move it down.  If you use no chemicals you can harvest any frame of honey from anywhere, so you can just pull some honey out of the lower boxes and swap it for the brood.

Having different sized boxes is a disadvantage.

Another way to keep the queen out of the supers is to use 7/11 foundation from Walter T. Kelley.  This is in between drone and worker size and the queen doesn't like to lay in it.

[Finsky]

It is a big advantage when doing an unlimted brood nest (no excluder version) to have all the same sized boxes. 

It is but but quite small compared to light medium boxes.  Medium combs are nice to extract too.

Rearrange of combs is needed quite seldom.  In south swarming time is long and it needs plenty og checking. Our swarming period is only 1 month long.