Lots of honey left in brood boxes!

[EOHenry]

Today was finally warm enuff to do hive inspections.  As a rule I always use 2 deep boxes for brood  and overwintering.  This year I left acouple partially capped shallows on a couple of my hives.  I found the shallows pretty well cleaned out.  When I lifted the top deep off acouple of my hives, they were so heavy I could hardly lift them off.  I pulled most of the frames out and found them full of honey and only acouple had any evidence of brood activity.  My concern is that the queen will run out of room to lay.  What do I do with the capped deep frames of honey?  The cappings are nice and white and are from last summer.  Can I extract the honey even tho I treated the hives for mites last fall?  The other hives have plenty of honey left in them too so I don't need to feed them plus I have had syrup feeders on for a week and they hardly took any up.  Also they are bringing back lots of pollen.  Any value to looking for some old capped frames and scratch them open to eat up and then use for brood frames?  Or should I put a new deep box between the two deeps?  Never thot I would have a problem of too much honey left over winter.

Lovin' this weather! :)
Altho they are talking snow flurries next weekend. :'(

[Cindi]

EOHenry.  If I were you, I would take those extra frames (you are worried about chemicals in the honey?) and freeze them, keeping them handy in case you do any splits or catch a swarm or two, hee, hee.  You never ever know when you may also need some feed for emergency feeding.  My thoughts on this.....beautiful day in this great life, Cindi

[Brian D. Bray]

If you are concerned about the hive being honey bound to the point the queen won't lay just pull a couple of frames on each side of what brood nest there is and let the bees drawn new comb.  The queen will lay eggs in the comb as it is being drawn out.  If you are only using 1 brood box I would suggest opting for 2.  More bees produce more honey in less time. 

[EOHenry]

I always use 2 deeps for brood. But, as I stated, acouple of the top boxes had lots, (3/4 of frames) of honey loaded into them from last fall. I learned something, agan, this year that the bees emptied the partialied full shallows I left on before they took honey in the deep brood boxes.  I thought they worked their way up to top and then moved over and started over agan.  Still, and probably always will, learning about these amazing creatures.  I think what I'm gonna do is take off the newer looking honey frames, as suggested,  and put new foundation in for them to draw out for brood frames. I'm also thinking of scratching open acouple of the old frames of honey fartherest away from brood frames that I know has been in hive for 2-3 years and has probablly crystalized.

They're talking snow flurries agan for this week. :'(  Nothing blooming yet around here!

[KONASDAD]

It may be too early to be conscerned about laying room in your area. My top deep was similar and I placed a few drawn and empty frames in middle as a precaution, but it was probably not needed. Now spring is coming along and the bees are moving honey away from brood area to make room for queen as she layed in the drawn frames I provided. But it took two plus weeks for her to move up as weather is still inconsistent.

[Michael Bush]

Laying area in the spring is only a problem if you're feeding.  They will burn through honey like no tomorrow in the spring buildup