I’m curious to know what are the pros and cons of adding a second brood box to my hive. I understand that there are different preferences among beekeepers, and that the local climate is an important consideration. My goal is to manage a single 10 frame Langstroth (7 Flow super) Flow Hive.
My hive is about 3 miles inland from the coast with moderate summer temperatures ranging typically in the mid 60s to high 70s Fahrenheit (15-27 Celsius), and mid 50s to high 60s Fahrenheit (13-21 Celsius) in the winter. Rain is almost entirely in the winter (Oct-April) and ranges 8 to 16 inches (20 - 40cm) with an average of roughly 11 inches (28 cm).
I’d love to hear from some beekeepers in my area to know what they are typically doing and what the benefits as well as additional challenges or effort (pros/cons) are to adding a second brood box.
My hives are 8 frame brood boxes (I can’t lift a full 10 frame box) and I run double deep brood boxes. I am 500 feet from the coast…
When we started beekeeping in San Diego, I asked multiple senior members of the SDBS the same question you asked. Most of them recommended double deep brood boxes, or triple mediums.
Pros of double deeps:
Strong brood nest
Good space for winter food storage
Better chance of the hive making it through winter (because of points 1 and 2)
Less chance (but not zero chance!) of repeated need for feeding during dearths
Cons of double deeps:
Very heavy to lift when full
Very strong hive, which can be “hot to handle” if the queen gets replaced with an imposter that then mates with the 70%+ africanized drones that we have around here
Harder to find the queen if you need to do so (more frames to look through)
Longer inspection times and more chance of missing queen cells
I am sure that there are more points on both sides, but those are the ones that spring to mind. When I was asking questions, I noticed that all of the hobbyist beekeepers used double deeps for brood. Hilary Kearney of https://girlnextdoorhoney.com used triple mediums. Some of the commercial beekeepers used single deeps, because they migrated their hives up to the San Joaquin valley area for the almond flowering period. Commercial beekeepers don’t want to be lugging double deeps around on the back of trucks!
I am sticking to double deeps, because I think it is better for the bees to have their own honey over winter, rather than me having to feed them. Also for the last 5 years, we have had a very challenging nectar drought and if I missed a low food storage situation in a hive, it would have been more critical in a single deep hive than in a double deep. Just my opinion…
That all sounds very logical and practical. Thanks Dawn. This hive currently seems very strong and packed with bees. They are busy filling out the five open foundationless frames with comb.
Is it better to add the second brood box once they have finished drawing the comb on the remaining frames, or wait until they’ve mostly filled the all the cells? I’m assuming wait, but I don’t want them to get so crowded that they think about swarming.
Hi Dawn_SD - If you don’t mind, I have a couple questions about adding the Flow honey super. If I have a good amount of bees in my brood box, I’m questioning whether or not they would have enough food in that one box for the Winter? And, if I add the Flow super, how does that benefit the bees since it gets taken off for the Winter and they don’t have access to that honey? This has me confused because I kept hearing once the frames are built out add the honey super. Shouldn’t we be adding another box for the bees to store more food before we add the Flow honey super? I don’t see how the honey in the super helps the bees, since the super gets taken off for the winter? Can you help me understand this please?
I’m brand new to beekeeping myself, but I’m going to guess at what Dawn’s advice might be since she has already provided me a lot of great advice on this topic.
To make sure the bees have enough honey over the winter months when nectar and pollen resources are low, it is good to add a second brood box. Let them build up the frames in the second brood box so that you’ve got at least 80% of the frames with comb, and 80% full of brood/pollen/honey, and 80% covered with adult bees. Once they hit that 80% rule stage then you can add the Flow super on top of the second brood box with the queen excluder between the super and top brood box. That way when you reduce your hive size in preparation for the cooler months you will have lots of stored honey in the second (top) brood box.
Thanks Scott…I think that is great advice too! So, as far as the honey in the Flow super, is that for the beekeeper if the 2 boxes have plenty of food for the winter? I didn’t start this to grab all the honey, it’s because I have so much respect for the amazing bees, but a little would be a bonus. I just don’t see how the bees would benefit from us putting the Flow super on when we only have one brood box, since it comes off in Winter. Maybe I’m missing something…
I totally agree with @safleury - great answer Scott, well done on all of your reading!
I also agree with your last post, @carol08 - the Flow super is for the beekeeper after the bees have enough. They will eat about 5-7lb per week during a nectar dearth. A frame of honey in a deep box is about 7lb. If you don’t have enough frames full of honey to cover a nectar dearth, you are going to need to feed them, and that is never as good as them being able to use their own stores. Beekeeping well is quite hard! You have to think about a lot of things to do the best for your bees.
So in summary (a slight over simplification), double deep brood boxes for most people in California. No super over winter. The super is put on the hive for you, not for the bees.
@Dawn_SD, so I think my goal should be to manage my colony (particularly varroa management and swarming) so that it grows strong this spring and summer (Calif) with double deep brood boxes with lots of food stores going into the next winter, then hopefully they overwinter well and I have a strong foraging colony emerge next spring. I think that might lead to putting that Flow super on next spring and hopefully have extra honey flowing. Easier said than done, after all, it’s bees and a human, lol. But given it goes well, does that sound about right to you?
Hi all,
We have 4 flow hives in Santa Barbara, all double brood boxes. One has the super on it that feels extremely heavy with honey. The window in the Flow front suggests that they are not entirely full, but I am going to wait a week and pop up the super flow frames to see how much is actually capped. I tried moving the super and had a hard time. Many, many lbs of honey.
The other double brood box hive with a super doesn’t have much honey in the super at all. I think I may have put it on too late. The brood boxes are very full and enough to get them through the winter.
What do I do with the honey in a super or a frame that isn’t 80% capped? Leave the super on and let them eat it over the winter? Remove the super and clean it up so it is empty for March to put it back on? I know it will likely ferment if I try to extract it without 80% as capped, but then what?
At this time of year, I would harvest it. Late in the season (as we are now), bees often don’t cap even ripe honey. Probably because they know that a dearth is on the way, and they will need it soon. Capping is an unnecessary waste of energy for them!
I have a honey refractometer - they are pretty inexpensive on Amazon. If the honey is less than 18.6% water, it is definitely shelf-stable at room temperature. I always test all of my honey harvests. Here is one option for a refractometer:
I would not leave the Flow super (or other supers) on the hive. Flow supers will likely accumulate propolis (bad thing!) and leaving a queen excluder on over winter puts the queen at risk of dying if the bees cluster and move above the excluder.
Several options. One is test it with a refractometer, then you will know for sure how ripe/dry it is. Second is to freeze it until you want to use it. Keep it in the fridge and use it within a month or two. Third is to pasteurize it. I have never done this, but @Martha has, with good results in terms of taste. Fourth is to feed it back to the bees if their stores get low over winter, keeping it frozen until you feed it to them. The choice is yours!
I wouldn’t “clean it up” yourself. Harvest, leave it on the hive for about 3 days and let the bees clean it up. I then put the frames in the freezer for 24-48 hours to kill off wax moth and SHB eggs/larvae. After that, put them back in the super in the garage (or shed if you have one), tightly wrapped in burlap to keep critters out until next spring. Easy to do.
Hi Dawn,
Thank you again for your advice. Incredibly helpful. If you wouldn’t mind sharing one more thing – I just harvested with my flow hive. I covered the spout and top with plastic but it clearly wasn’t tight enough because a bunch of bees kept getting in it. Then I would try to save them and more hopped in. Then word got out about the honey leaving their hive and a whole bunch of bees showed up. It was…a mess. I got the honey and I will strain out whatever bees are still in there, but I would LOVE not to repeat that. Every video I’ve seen of harvesting, 1-2 bees are checking it out, but these were hundreds of bees and then the hornets showed up for a little fun too. Maybe it was because it is late in the season but they have 2 very very full brood boxes to get their honey from. This was definitely excess.
What’s your go-to for keeping the bees out while extracting? Plastic wrap? An added 90 degree pipe through a hole in the container top?
I made a manifold to help with this problem - especially since it takes a lot longer than you think to drain the frames this way I can walk away and not worry too much about it.
That’s seriously next level! I love it. After today’s experience, I will definitely be building something along these lines. I wish I had known about this before. ‘The bees will barely notice you are there’ hahahahaha. pretty sure they noticed
