[Michael Bush]

Checkerboarding is done above the brood nest... You can open the brood nest. If the bees can fill the gaps with festooning bees you can make the gap with no real risk. Not many hives can take every other one empty. It would have to be booming and have a serious excess of bees...

 

[Moonflower]

I do not have a top Bar Hive...the beekeeper said I can manipulate the frames...I think I went overboard though..will ck this coming weekend & see what havoc I reeked. I want this to be a enjoyable hobby, NOT stressful....so I guess I will take it as it comes & learn along the way. Or at least I am going to repeat this mantra in my head until I believe it!

 

[chris_nelson123]

Michael,

When expanding the brood nest is it better to put an empty bar in between two bars of brood? So it would be BBEBB.

 

[Michael Bush]

The best place to feed empty bars is between brood combs because it no only prevents swarming and encourages expansion, but it results in very nice combs if the combs it is between are very nice combs. Brood combs are very consistent. Honey combs are not.

 

[shannonswyatt]

I assume that cold isn't a problem, but you should keep brood nest bars in pairs at a minimum. So you would have something like this. BBEBBEBBEBB. When they are drawing comb they will pull those empty bars out rather quickly.