Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: L Daxon on April 25, 2013, 11:47:13 pm
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For those of you who run all 8 frame medium equipment, how many brood boxes do you go with during the spring and flow?
How many boxes do you use to overwinter?
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I give them a new box every time they've built out and are using six of the eight frames. I don't use a queen excluder so the queen builds brood in whatever boxes she would like. In the spring build up, I often have brood in the bottom three boxes although they usually share the top box with a few honey frames on the sides.
Remember that an 8 frame box is 20% smaller than a 10 frame so it makes sense that the brood would need three boxes.
So I don't keep a rule in my head about how many boxes - instead, I just give them a new one every time they need it.
I typically overwinter in three medium boxes. But I didn't harvest from all of my hives last year and didn't consolidate a few of them - so they wintered in four or five frame boxes - here in Atlanta we barely have winter now that global warming is so prevalent, so it doesn't really cause a problem.
Linda T in Atlanta
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Howdy Linda. I've been dedicating three 8-frame mediums to the bees. I don't use queen excluders and the bees seem to be pretty good at building honey domes and containing the queen. I figure whatever they want to store in those 3 mediums is good with me. If I decide to feed syrup I do it with only three boxes on...the fourth box only goes on when the syrup has been removed...the fourth box on up is for me. If I find brood above the third box, well, things happen. :)
Just my newbee take on it. :)
Ed
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Good hive, when your re going to get honey
- 3 mediums for brood
- 6 for honey
- 2-3 for winter
if hives are not that good in main yield, I join them
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30 frames of mediums for wintering in New England so 4 boxes of you are using
8 frame boxes . As for honey I just give them a new one every time they need it.
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
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>For those of you who run all 8 frame medium equipment, how many brood boxes do you go with during the spring and flow?
As many as they need.
>How many boxes do you use to overwinter?
As many as they need. A small cluster might be in one box. A medium sized cluster might be in three. A really large cluster might be in five...
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Thanks guys. I was planning on using 4 boxes for brood chambers this spring but I have two booming hives: Hive #1 seems happy to keep brood mostly in 3 boxes and has put on nearly 2 supers of honey already in April (did find a golf ball sized patch of drone brood in the bottom of a frame or two of box 4). Hive #2 is all spread out over 5 boxes and just swarmed, even though I had been checkerboarding for weeks, and really was thinking the #1 hive was busier and more heavily populated (and yes, I did catch the swarm and put it on split I made from #2 a couple weeks earlier).
I guess I will let each hive be different and just keep supering.
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4 eight frame medium boxes = 3 ten frame medium boxe = 2 ten frame deep boxes...
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Way back when I used to use deeps I always ran a 2 deep, 10 frame brood chamber so I guess with 8 frame mediums I should give them at least 4 boxes for brood. Right now on my two biggest hives I have six boxes on each one, 4 for brood and 2 for honey. They are sure putting on honey early this year.
And I did make a split off of one of these booming hives the first of April and it is already up to 3 boxes. Will probably put on a 4th in a week or two. My husband said I could only have 3 hives on our lot here in the city (but I did sneak a nuc in on him last week :-D. Told him not to really think of it as a hive. Just a place to park an extra queen.)
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If your only allowed to keep 3 hives you might want to look into running 2 queens so actually you can run 6 instead of 3.
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Way back when I used to use deeps I always ran a 2 deep, 10 frame brood chamber so I guess with 8 frame mediums I should give them at least 4 boxes for brood.
this has nothing to do with mathematics.
You give more room to bees if they need it. When it is honey flow, the hive needs soon more room andit depends how often you extract.
The ability of queen to lay rules finally what the hive will bee. Some hive has 4 boxes and some 8 boxes. You will see it.
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Hankdog1,
Yes, I have thought about experimenting with double queen set ups but I am only 5'2" and 6, at most 7 boxes high is the most I can handle without getting on a ladder. Last time on a ladder I misstepped and tore my meniscus in left knee.
What I usually do to keep populations high in prep for flow is just add any swarms I catch to existing hives so I have lots of girls to build out comb and gather nectar when the flow is on. Looks like I am going to have a bumper crop this year.
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Okay it was just a suggestion to double up. Really though the key to keeping hives short is making sure you take supers off as soon as they get full though. Most folks only harvest 1 to 2 times a year. Sometimes that isn't an option for shorter people.