Size of brood nest for 8 frame mediums

[A_Bee_Guy]

For those who use 8 frame mediums for standard beekeeping, how many boxes do you allow for the brood nest? Since your frames are smaller and there are less of them, should you use 3 boxes, instead of the usual 2 boxes for 10 frame deeps?

Thanks!

[sfisher]

I use three in South Carolina, I can over winter some of them in two.

[David LaFerney]

3 or 4. In theory 3 should work based on how many eggs a queen can lay and the rate they emerge.

[rkereid]

I winter most of mine in 3 medium 10 frame boxes, some in 4, and a few in 2. The nucs in 2 or 3. The 10 frame box is not much bigger than 8, especially since the bees often do not fully utilize the outer frames all year.

[tommyt]

I use ten frame meds and use 3 box's
I leave these year round
Box 3 is for the most part food
In the middle of winter there will be a bit of brood
That is only on a few hives I think I could use an excluder
and stop that
I don't feed my bees, the third box covers that.

[Michael Bush]

>For those who use 8 frame mediums for standard beekeeping, how many boxes do you allow for the brood nest?

Two eight frame mediums = one ten frame deep. In my location that would typically be four eight frame mediums (the typical hive here is two ten frame deeps in winter). Since I don't use an excluder and since I adjust the size of the hive for winter based on the cluster size, I don't allocate anything. The queen can expand as far as she needs to and I can leave whatever I think they need.

[A_Bee_Guy]

Thanks to all for the very helpful comments!