I live in the Pacific Northwest and have the need for two brood boxes to ensure an adequate bee population to keep the necessary temperature to overwinter my colony.
Unfortunately, the Flow hive site can’t ship any additional brood boxes until late May. I just installed my Nuc last weekend and I am fearful that’s too late for my bees and they may start the process to swarm given the lack of space. Any advice for a newbie? Will any langstroth brood box work in lieu of a flow hive branded brood box. I ordered one already but I don’t think it will arrive in time.
Hi @Creoleman92 ,
Any Langstroth box will do. Just buy to the size of the hive you have. 8 or 10 frames.
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@ABB awesome. Thank you so much for the reply. Much appreciated.
I think there are some misconceptions about this. You may need two boxes if you have extended dearth periods (no matter the time of year) and you don’t want to have to consider feeding your colonies. You will have to rely on your own local and hyperlocal experience and the advice of your local beekeepers to make this determination. But the bees won’t be warmer over winter in two boxes because they have more space, quite the opposite.
Your winters in Vancouver, WA are pretty mild, as far as temperatures go. Dampness, availability of forage, and flying weather are probably the bigger issues over winter.
You probably have some time - you don’t need, or shouldn’t add, another box - brood or super - until the box that you have is completely covered in bees.
As @ABB said, any box will do.
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