[mamm7215]

I'm asking this on the other bee forum as well but open to as much help as I can get...

After my inspection Saturday my bottom 8 frame brood deep is pretty full. The outside frames are honey, half capped and the rest are pretty much brood/honey in the corners with some pollen throughout. Queen is there and active. My 8 frame deep honey super above has 4 frames of honey, also about 1/2 capped but not much on the other 4. I also have mild bearding so the bottom brooder is cozy. Each of my last 2 inspections I've destroyed 1 queen cell. I'd like to keep it to 1 brood box as I'm pretty new but I do have a medium box with 8 frames of foundation ready to go if need be. Keep an eye on it and leave them alone or put the medium on as a 2nd brood chamber? Or checkerboard the top honey super so instead of EEHHHEE it would be EHEHHEHE?

 

[Jadeguppy]

If you are still on a flow and the honey super is full, have they started backfilling the brood box? Queen cell usually refers to a capped cup. Was it an actual queen cell or just a cup? If a cup, that is normal and doesn't mean they will raise a queen unless you see an egg or royal jelly in it. One 8 frame honey super sounds small. How many do others in your area usually run?

 

[mamm7215]

It was a capped cup, not a large elongated queen cell. But capped, not open and definitely not a drone cell. There's still good pollen coming in, lots of bees with full saddlebags. There's honey on frames in the brood box but in what I've read is a "normal" configuration. Brood in the center, oval pattern over most of the frame, pollen/nectar beside it with honey/capped honey on the corners. The outermost frames in the brood box are pretty much all honey/capped honey (1 & 8). The 8 frame honey super is a deep box, not a medium. And it's getting heavy, wasn't expecting that :/ I just double checked my pics from last inspection and they've actually moved/used some capped honey from frame 7 to make more room for brood, the honey area is smaller on that frame and brood area bigger.

 

[JWPalmer]

I would add the medium as a second brood chamber. Move one deep from the bottom to the medium and let it hang down into the deep. Move your capped honey to the outsides of the super and put the partials in the middle so they get worked faster. Once the bees start drawing out the medium and the queen lays in it, move the deep frame back down and replace the missing medium frame.

 

[BumblingBeek]

I would add the medium as a second brood chamber. Move one deep from the bottom to the medium and let it hang down into the deep. Move your capped honey to the outsides of the super and put the partials in the middle so they get worked faster. Once the bees start drawing out the medium and the queen lays in it, move the deep frame back down and replace the missing medium frame.

OOOH, thank you for this! I don't want to super with a 2nd deep, and was wondering how to get them up in the super without being able to put a frame from the deep brood box into the 1st medium super!

 

[mamm7215]

Jeez, great idea! I didn't even think of that, I was stressing about not having a brood frame to fit the medium. Thanks!

 

[Jadeguppy]

Food for future thought, I run all mediums to eliminate problems associated with different sized equipment. After some trials, I'm settling on two mediums for the brood area. I hear there are beeks near the US/Canada border who have also gone all mediums.

 

[BumblingBeek]

I wish I had seen the advice to just go all mediums before I began my first year of beekeeping, because I think it’s smart. I just don’t want to cut down the frames to convert now that I have deep brood boxes being filled. I think next spring I will take that plunge. My mentor overwinters in mostly 1 deep with 2 mediums of resources on top. I know I wouldn’t ever be able to lift a deep!

 

[mamm7215]

Food for future thought, I run all mediums to eliminate problems associated with different sized equipment. After some trials, I'm settling on two mediums for the brood area. I hear there are beeks near the US/Canada border who have also gone all mediums.

I can see the benefit in that. I’m committed now to at least 1 hive with a deep brooder. I did put the 2nd medium brooder on this afternoon with a frame of brood from below hanging down an empty slot so the deep frame would fit as per JWPalmer’s advice. We’ll see what happens by the weekend. Hope they take to the new setup.

 

[ifixoldhouses]

I tried that once, and all they did was draw out the bottom of the deep frame to fill the void, seems to work best if there's two medium boxes, so there's no void.

 

[mamm7215]

I hope they start on the medium frames soon enough that I can move the deep frame back down without a lot of trimming...

 

[BumblingBeek]

I hope they start on the medium frames soon enough that I can move the deep frame back down without a lot of trimming...

I’ve been told that in order to make this work, any comb drawn on the bottom of the hanging frame would need to be removed regularly-at least once a week. ifixoldhouses, did you try that?

 

[ifixoldhouses]

I’ve been told that in order to make this work, any comb drawn on the bottom of the hanging frame would need to be removed regularly-at least once a week. ifixoldhouses, did you try that?

I don't think so, it was only there a week or so.

 

[mamm7215]

I did move a deep brood frame up and hung it down over the empty space below it and it seems to be working. They are drawing comb on the underside and the space in the lower deep brood box is full of bees. I'm hoping I didn't create a bigger mess than to just have put the medium 2nd brood box on with foundation and let the bees do their thing. I'm going to try to put the deep brood frame back down this weekend, I think there's enough activity that they're drawing out the new brood box fine.

 

[JWPalmer]

Comb on the bottom of a frame is not really a mess and is easily removed. They key is to get the bees into the upper box first, and then deal with whatever minor problems that created. After a few days time, the inside of the frames closest to the moved deep should be getting built out. You are home free from there.

 

[mamm7215]

Thanks, I'm trying to get them as much room as they need before August. I'm away for 3 weeks and won't be able to inspect so I'm trying to mitigate swarming, etc as best as possible. For the empty space in the lower brood box, I mean it's full of bees. Would they fill that gap with comb, I'm more concerned about big blob in there...

 

[Jadeguppy]

I’ve been told that in order to make this work, any comb drawn on the bottom of the hanging frame would need to be removed regularly-at least once a week. ifixoldhouses, did you try that?

Not sure why someone would say you have to remove it weekly. I have two transition boxes that are almost all mediums with the bottoms drawn to deeps and have been all year. Once the remaining deeps are capped, they will be removed. When all my deeps are removed, I'll cut the bottoms of the mediums and put them into frames. Then divide the now 20 frames (10 mediums, 10 mediums created from the comb on the bottoms of the other mediums) between two boxes. I've done this several times when I had to buy a nuc and could only get a deep nuc. There are many slightly different ways to phase our deep frames. I've got almost all of mine gone or cut down to mediums.

 

[JWPalmer]

I still have a few medium frames in deep boxes with the requisite additional comb drawn on the bottom. Not a problem. The frames that have this additional comb are older now and there is no issue with flipping the frames over and having the comb break off, something that new comb will readily do. If the bees draw out that extra 3" on the bottom of the deep frame, cut it off, stick it in an empty frame with a few rubber bands, and your done. The bees have not wasted any effort. And you have a partially drawn foundationless frame ready to go.

 

[mamm7215]

I still have a few medium frames in deep boxes with the requisite additional comb drawn on the bottom. Not a problem. The frames that have this additional comb are older now and there is no issue with flipping the frames over and having the comb break off, something that new comb will readily do. If the bees draw out that extra 3" on the bottom of the deep frame, cut it off, stick it in an empty frame with a few rubber bands, and your done. The bees have not wasted any effort. And you have a partially drawn foundationless frame ready to go.

Thanks again for the insight, it really helps. Here's another quick question. I've noticed that I'm also getting a LOT of drone brood in clusters in the corners and bottoms of some frames. I'm doing an inspection later today but I'm getting the feeling I may need to split this hive. Queen cells every week and more drone brood. Now, it's not like whole frames are drone brood but definitely corner/bottom clusters. I think if I find another queen cell I'm going to stick that frame and a couple more in a new hive body and let them make a new queen. If adding the extra brood box has stopped the queen cells, I'll probably leave well enough alone but I think I'm delaying the inevitable here...

 

[JWPalmer]

During the prime swarm season, up to 20% of the hive could be drones. A scary number for those of us accustomed to minimal numbers of drones. When I switched to foundationless this year, the first two frames in many of the hives was solid drone comb. If the hive has not swarmed yet, you are better off putting the existing queen in a nuc and let the hive raise the new queen. It simulates a swarm and will do a lot towards curbing further swarming tendencies.