Advice about ?honey-bound.
Hive inspection today, mid winter.
I have an 8 frame and a 10 frame.
The 8 frame brood box has 3 frames on the outside full of honey, 2 are fully capped. Plenty of good brood, eggs, larvae, pollen in the middle frames. I’ve left the supers on during winter and they are starting to fill one flow frame with honey.
The 10 frame brood box; 3-4 frames on the outer also full of honey, at least 2 of which is fully capped.
All seems very healthy and active. no honey in the super yet.
Appears to be enough comb in the middle frames for new eggs to be laid.
Question is; should I leave as is or take out the fully capped honey frames from the brood box?
Thanks
Jason
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Unless you want to increase the size of the colony, I don’t think you need to do anything. Those two frames are their social security fund 
Serious honey-bounding looks like a dome of honey that gradually pushes the nest down to the bottom and to the centre of the hive.
So the question is, what are you trying to achieve at the moment? 
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Hi Jason, what you’re seeing is normal for up here. I’m at Buderim. I don’t like the term “honey bound” because unless a hive has absolutely nowhere for the bees to store another drop of honey, a hive can’t be honey bound. Your brood boxes are exactly how the bees want them to be under the current circumstances. We’re past the solstice, so it’s only a matter of a few weeks before the bees start to open the brood up in order to get ready to swarm. It all coincides with the lengthening of the days & an increase in pollen production.
When I say “open the brood up”, the bees will remove honey, while raising the honey arcs, thus allowing the queen to lay more eggs. You’ll see what I mean during spring brood inspections while exercising swarm prevention measures.
The bees will also remove the honey from those frames that are full of honey, in order for the queen to lay more eggs.
I normally take those frames to extract & replace them with nicely drawn worker comb stickies or fresh foundation.
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Thanks JeffH
That makes perfect sense & what I was hoping to hear.
Sounds like my bees know what they’re doing!
J
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Yes, for sure Jason, they do. One way to reduce the amount of honey the bees store in the brood boxes would be if our brood boxes/hives were better insulated. Which would include the roof & floor.
When I say “current circumstances”, I’m talking about the outside temps as well as the hive configuration that the bees have to work with.