2nd honey super or brood box, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

My hive is 1 brood box and 1 flow super. The brood box is very full and happy but we’ve outgrown our space, if I dont add a 3rd box to the hive soon then the bees are looking to start swarming. Do I add another honey super or another brood box? I’m not so good at finding the queen so would prefer to keep her in the lower brood box below the queen excluder and just add another honey super that I can leave unharvested for overwintering and continue harvesting from my flow super. Is there anything wrong with this set up? _

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Not at all. A lot of Australian beekeepers add an ideal sized traditional honey super for the bees to use overwinter. I think it is a good idea. I would probably add it on top of the Flow super, so that they are encouraged to fill the Flow super first. However, it doesn’t really matter that much, and if you want to put it under the Flow super, that would work too. :wink:

You could add another brood box, but if you do, you will get even more bees! :open_mouth:

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Thank you so much. I did put it on top of the flow super so that was going to be my next question. :smile:

I use a hybrid to get me through winter.

If you want to prevent your colony from swarming, I find it best to take a split from the colony & open the brood up by checkerboarding with fresh frames with foundation or fully drawn worker comb.

With practice, you’ll get better at finding the queen. You really need to get good at finding the queen. You could think about finding a mentor who could help you to find & mark her for you.

Did you see that thread where a bloke’s colony was going gangbusters 3 months ago, now it’s slimed-out? You don’t want that to happen to your hive.

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