Hi All,
Just did my first end of winter inspection and theres about half a hive of fresh capped brood. Ive noticed that they are building brood on frames on one side of the box rather than in the middle, why might this be?
Usually because it is the warmer side. That way it takes less energy for them to keep the brood warm in cooler weather. 
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I’m a bit confused by your observation. Are you saying that there is no brood in the middle frames? If so, what are the bees using the middle frames for?
I’m not saying this is you, however I’ve noticed when transferring bees & frames into a new beekeeper’s brood box, they often comment & recognize sealed brood as “brood”, saying “look at the brood”, while saying nothing about unsealed brood. I have to point out that unsealed brood is also “brood”.
Hey Dawn, yes I suspected this might be it. Strange though, I wouldn’t have picked that side as warmer because I thought the other got more sun but it is probably more protected.
Hey Jeff so I have a 10 frame box and the set up goes a bit like this
Frame 1 - honey
Frame 2- brood
Frame 3 - brood
Frame 4 - brood
Frame 5 - brood
Frame 6 - pollen and honey
Frame 7 - pollen and honey
Frame 8- honey
Frame 9 - honey
Frame 10 - basically empty
With bits and pieces of pollen and honey on all frames.
Buy brood I mean anything from egg to lava to capped brood.
I think Dawn is probably right here and the eastern side of the hives either warmer or at a better temperature in some way.
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Hi Lydia, that clears things up for me.
The other consideration besides the sun would be which side & size of your entrance. I have found that during winter, bees will avoid placing brood adjacent to a large entrance.
An entrance only needs to be no larger than 15 sq.cm., at the best of times. Therefore during winter, when the population shrinks, 7.5 sq.cm. would be sufficient. That could be split into 2 small entrances, one each side.
As the days continue to lengthen, & the nights get warmer, your bees will expand the brood further, as they get into swarm mode. Swarm mode is something that we as beekeepers should be aware of, and take appropriate steps to avoid.
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