Hello. Couldn’t find anything on the subject. I have a frame feeder that holds about 1 gallon of syrup. Been feeding while the second brood box comb is bring drawn. They’ve done a great job on the comb in the middle and the side with the frame feeder but the opposite side 2 frames haven’t been touched. Wondering if anyone has had the issue where frame feeder side is drawn only and now all the syrup in the feeder appears to be stored in the comb immediately beside it lol. Considering flipping the frame feeder to the other side to entice some more action on the empty frames.
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I think what you are considering is a good idea. I don’t use feeders, however I’m thinking that you want the bees to draw comb with the syrup, not turn it into honey before storing it. Manipulating frames like you suggest is a great way to get the bees to draw that comb.
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I swapped the frames so the empty ones are immediately next to the feeder. I just started in May so I have no drawn frames to give them so I need them drawn. I’ll keep you posted if this helps them draw out the frames. They stored the syrup in the two frames that were next to it so they were quite heavy. Not what I had in mind when feeding but it’s theirs to use during a dearth so no harm done.
Watching videos online I see a lot of beekeepers with double brood boxes that when a flow is on they’ll move the queen to the bottom box and queen excluded on a single brood box. What’s the benefit of forcing the bees to a single box? Maybe I’m misunderstanding a more long term reason for them to reduce doubles to singles.
Seems like I could reduce my double to a single and allow the queen to once again lay only in the lower box and honey the the top box for them to use in winter? Anything above the top brood box (now a super) can be extracted as surplus?
Or is it best to just leave the double brood box and allow the queen and bees to move and manage themselves.
I was also thinking along those lines of leaving the feeder where it was & simply moving the frames around.
I only work with single brood boxes. Whether you use one or two is a decision you’ll have to make along the way. My latest favorite saying is “with the benefit of hindsight”. It’s with the benefit of lots of hindsight that I’ve developed my strategy of using single brood boxes.
cheers
PS next time you’re in the hive, can you have a taste of that sugar syrup honey, then let us know how it tastes. double cheers 
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Only queen is forced to one box. The rest have whole estate 
Operation may have several purposes. For example, swarm prevention and comb building in one package. Another - fast colony growth in preparation to the major flow.
Some swarm prevention methods are based on separation of queen from the brood. An example recently shared by @Doug1 here. General idea - all brood goes up, queen with (or without) one frame of young unsealed brood goes to the first box. Some variants may include filling first box with foundation, putting box with honey frames under brood, etc. The purpose of the exercise is to create conditions that trigger survival instinct and it takes over propagation. That is to say ideas about swarming that colony may have had are being shaken out of it. It works very well. When colony was kicked out of hive and on return sees it completely rearranged they even do orientation flight on some occasions. But more importantly, they start restoration work with enthusiasm of the swarm without swarming.
Fast colony growth.
Having two brood boxes is a good starting point. But when left unmanaged, queen spends too much time looking for empty cells instead of laying eggs. Brood production could be greatly improved if queen has whole box of empty cells available to her. So we give her such box and keep her in it by QX. Then we move box filled with brood up and replace it with another box of frames ready for laying. Then another. When queen fills the box, the first one is already hatched and we swap them. We running this carousel until targeted source of honey begins to flower and after that touching only suppers. The purpose is to have 8-10kg of bees or more ready to work on the major flow. Such colony may bring ~15kg to hive daily while flow lasts.
Then, in preparation for winter we switch back to two boxes without QX again.
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Very well explained ABB and the bees love it:
3 to 4 weeks after the Taranov reset, it was time to remove the spring honey…it has dandelion nectar in it so much more prone to granualtion than canola. Spring conditions were excellent and we harvested 90 lbs (40kgs) per hive.
At the same time as the spring honey removal, we removed the queen excluder over the single brood box to complete a queen inspection and most hives had brood like this…capped brood directly under the queen excluder…this is important…no honey dome on the upper edge of the brood frame:
Two frames of capped brood/surplus feed frames were removed from the broodnest and new frames of waxed plastic foundation inserted right into the broodnest after horizontally stretching the brood area. The queen excluder was placed back over the single brood box (after bees shook off the two frames), the two brood frames were placed into the lowest of 4 or 5 empty honey supers stacked on the hive. Also an oxalic impregnated blue shop towel was placed immediately on top of the queen excluder for varroa mite control.
No swarming for another month now…when the second honey pull will be completed.
Because the hive still has the mindset of a swarm, inserted foundation frames are built out flawlessly with only worker comb.
Flow frame supers are added to the hives for the 3rd honey pull…clover/alflafa honey.
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