Adding another deep brood box

[timgoodin]

I started a Russian package end of March and it has grown quite well. I put them on drawn comb in a deep and soon had to start adding mediums. I was out of deeps and had hoped to move to all mediums at some time when they moved their brood up into the mediums. They never moved up and now I have 4 mediums completely FULL of honey and a brood box with 9 frames of brood completely full capped and ready to go and a frame of pollen. Can I now put a deep box on the bottom with foundation and checkerboard the brood between the two boxes? The hive is completely full of bees, my largest hive and they are hanging out the front day and night. When I open them they completely cover me and are pretty agressive. Should I split them or add another brood box with more mediums? What would you experienced beeks suggest we are only about 30 days from typical dearth in my area?

Tim

[Michael Bush]

>Can I now put a deep box on the bottom with foundation and checkerboard the brood between the two boxes?

I assume you mean mixing foundation and brood frames. I would never spread them that thin. You could swap one frame of brood and leave two and remove one and leave two and then take all of those and move them up like this:

EEEBBBEEEE
BEBBEBBEBB

Where E is empty and B is brood. That way you have made some space in the brood nest, but not too much that you end up with chilled brood or major stress. And I wouldn't do this if they can't fill those gaps with festooning bees very quickly.

>we are only about 30 days from typical dearth in my area?

If you're going to do that, then you may have to feed them through the dearth so they can fill the gaps.