# Unlimited broodnest



## Hook (Jun 2, 2002)

I am running 3 deeps, and 3 medium supers on one of my hives. I filled 2 supers and extracted. Now, my question is this.
I put the supers back on, wet, and the 3rd deep is full of honey. On further inspection, the second deep is about half full of honey. Should I get rid of the honey in the second, and remove half in the 3rd? Its only July, and I'm getting honeybound.

Also, they are on 4.9 as well.


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Dale Richards
Dal-Col Apiaries
Drums, PA

[This message has been edited by Hook (edited July 04, 2003).]


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Are there a couple of empty frames in the brood nest for the queen to lay in? If so I wouldn't worry about it. If not, then I'd pull a couple of frames. Sometimes I just uncap some of the capped honey near the brood nest and the bees move it to make room for the queen. Seems like they won't move it if it's capped.


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## Hook (Jun 2, 2002)

I forgot to add, that I also suspected a failing queen. I removed the old queen, and put a new one in a cage today, and it was as if the bees thanked me. I was in a hurry before, so I'll add to the original idea. The bees were extremely stressed out. Mean as heck. Like that buckfast Michael had, following me to the truck and such. My original thoughts were, that she was almost a year old, and was starting to lose the ability to run things right. I thought that there was limited brood as compared to earlier in the year, and the bees figured, if she is not going to lay, we will store honey there. Now that it is requeened, should I move stuff around, or do you think the bees will take matters into there own hands? And yes, the 3rd deep is mostly capped. The second is not really capped. But for unlimited management, I thought the two bottom boxes should be open to lay in. This is the first time I am trying this, and the swarm is quite large, and making honey for me. I took 50 pounds off already, and they are starting to store again.The 4.9 regression took some time, and I'm not quite there yet, but the bees are drawing the foundations evenly, without much drone comb.
I also wonder, if I am moving too many things around during this process. I have been moving bad comb out, then up, then removing it altogether. It seems to be working, but I suspect that moving it out then up, I am creating the 3rd box problem myself. I can use the honey in nucs for queen rearing, or extract it and feed it back. Both are no problem.

Thoughts, comments, input gladly accepted.


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Dale Richards
Dal-Col Apiaries
Drums, PA


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I figure with three deeps that the queen will lay mostly in the bottom one, some in the middle one and probably not at all in the top one. In actuality she sometimes lays in all three, but I just try to keep some open space where she is currently laying. Not necassarily a lot of space, just some. As long as the honey is not capped I've seen them move a lot of it out of the way to open up a space for their queen. I've also seen them do as you say, where they fill it in with honey because there is no queen or the queen isn't laying yet. Then they move it out of the way when she does. If you have some drawn comb and an easy way to remove the honey from the deeps, you can swap out a frame or two. I wouldn't do too much because you disrupt where they want things for managing the brood and they can and will move things around.

Since I've now gone to all mediums and no chemicals, I just pull out the honey and move it up into a super.


[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited July 05, 2003).]


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## Clayton (Dec 8, 2000)

Hi,

As Micheal says I use all deeps usually (instead of mediums)(i do have 120 shallow boxes though) so I pull the capped frames from the center gut of the second or third box and move into the supers. Could you remove the center 5 frames of the 3rd box extract and return within an hour or so? Let the bees brood them up or fill up with honey again. Just don't do this late in the season where the bees can't store enough for winter.


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## Hook (Jun 2, 2002)

Thats what I going to do. I'll extract half of the third, and put it the comb back right away. That should help. It is what I thought I should do, but was unsure.


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