# Single vs. Double Brood Chambers



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I am thinking about trying a double brood on one of my hives next year for increased honey production to see what happens. 

Up here in the north, two deeps is the norm and three are often used. I use three when I have a booming hive that get's honey bound in the brood area, but usually I run two if I use an excluder. Often I just run a hive with no excluder and let the bees do what they will. Unfortunately, lifing full deep boxes of honey is getting to me, especially when they are stacked up high overhead. I used to use mostly deeps with a few shallows for comb honey, but I am trying to standardize on mediums. Partly because I'm using a lot of PermaComb. It will take me a while to convert though, because I can't just waste the equipment I have.

>Intersestingly no one uses medium supers here and you cannot even find them in the local beekeeping stores here. Is this just a regional idiosencrisy or is there a deeper reason? 

They used to call Medium supers "Illinois" supers. Seems they got popular in the midwest. Of course the logic was that supers get much heavier than brood boxes and it's easier to mange if they are smaller, but shallows were a little smaller than they wanted to handle. Now a lot of people are using mediums for everything because they are a nice comprimise. What do they use for supers there in the CSA? Deeps? Shallows?

I guess part of what I like about using all the same size boxes is you can let the bees decide how big to make the brood chamber without finding brood in a different size frame and you can take extracted drawn combs and use them for putting in honey bound brood nests and starting new hives.


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## Honeybelle (Apr 25, 2003)

People here use 1 deep for brood and shallows for honey supers. I personally use a deep and a shallow with 10 frames and then a queen excluder and then 9 frame honey supers on top. The bees then have an option to use the first shallow super for brood or storage as needs seems fit, most often for honey storage, as most queens seem to stay in the brood chamber. In the winter this first shallow super becomes my food storage super. I started using a queen excluder after I had a queen who laid eggs haphazardly in three honey supers during a flow while there was space in the brood chamber.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Don't you end up with brood in the shallow and no way to easily put it in the brood chamber? I guess it works. If you want to run a hive with no excluder you can buy 7/11 foundation from Walter T. Kellya and the queen doesn't like to lay in it. If you leave it on over winter, though, the bees will rebuild it into drone comb.


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## Stan The Bee Man (Jul 24, 2016)

*Re: Single vs. Double Brood Chambers --*



Michael Bush said:


> >I am thinking about trying a double brood on one of my hives next year for increased honey production to see what happens.
> 
> Up here in the north, two deeps is the norm and three are often used. I use three when I have a booming hive that get's honey bound in the brood area, but usually I run two if I use an excluder. Often I just run a hive with no excluder and let the bees do what they will. Unfortunately, lifing full deep boxes of honey is getting to me, especially when they are stacked up high overhead. I used to use mostly deeps with a few shallows for comb honey, but I am trying to standardize on mediums. Partly because I'm using a lot of PermaComb. It will take me a while to convert though, because I can't just waste the equipment I have.
> 
> ...




Hey Michael...quick question....I am in Central Texas and have 40 hives. Most are double brood chambers. Next spring I will be splitting and starting to go single brood chambers. I know it takes more time as you have to watch the hive a bit more but to me would be simpler to manage. I am retired and I don't have to make any money. I would like to get your take on single brood chambers. thanks so much! Im also not treating anymore and trying to raise strong bees that handle varroa.....


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

*Re: Single vs. Double Brood Chambers --*

Pulled that one from a while back !


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## Stan The Bee Man (Jul 24, 2016)

*Re: Single vs. Double Brood Chambers --*

got an answer?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

*Re: Single vs. Double Brood Chambers --*

Oh I embrace the single


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## Nhaupt2 (May 31, 2016)

hey Ian, I heard you did a talk on the subject the other day, any idea if that's gping to be available on youtube?


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## Buzz-kill (Aug 23, 2017)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjyNcyVvbEI


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## robirot (Mar 26, 2017)

Stan, if you want to convert into one Chamber, you should maybe also look into the Dadant/Jumbo frome Size. There you use only one brood Chamber, with about 1.3 times the Area of a single Deep, but you safe a lot of Work compared to a single Deep and much less swarming.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Nhaupt2 said:


> hey Ian, I heard you did a talk on the subject the other day, any idea if that's gping to be available on youtube?


I would think they will have it up shortly
Don’t expect a fantastic presenter, but the content is solid


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## Gumpy (Mar 30, 2016)

Buzz-kill said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjyNcyVvbEI


Any idea where this guy is located? He sounds like he's in Canada. He seems to think everyone can run singles, but I question if that's wise where the winters are cold and long. Maybe he has methods in his other videos for wintering.


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

Gumpy said:


> He sounds like he's in Canada. .


I believe he is in Canada. Northumberland County, Ontario. Certainly not the coldest part of Canada, but colder than my location so I'm not sure I can comment.


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## Buzz-kill (Aug 23, 2017)

Yes he is in Canada. Wintering single deeps in Canada is pretty common and I can provided more links if you like. I just liked his explanation of why it made sense to use a single deep brood chamber.


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## Nhaupt2 (May 31, 2016)

I would like more links please. not having to dig into the bottoms of double deeps is very appealing to me from a time management perspective.


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## Buzz-kill (Aug 23, 2017)

Nhaupt2 said:


> I would like more links please. not having to dig into the bottoms of double deeps is very appealing to me from a time management perspective.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8bDzD-aXj4 part of this is on feeding but also winterizing single deep which is what the U of Guelph run and they have allot of how to videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx5iTYH102k starts out talking about his overalls but does cover wintering later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqJ7pisbBuw This guy is in northern michigan and although he does not run single deep brood chambers he does late season splits and overwinters allot of single deep hives and the hive he preps in the video is a single deep. The camera work isn't the best.


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