# How much space to give in hive



## bentonkb (May 24, 2016)

I just finished reading a lot of the old posts in this forum and found that the typical answer is that 1 in 5 empty frames in the broodnest is a good target for most of the year. During a heavy flow, a strong hive might need 1 empty frame in 3. The thing that I missed the last two years is that you have to start early in the spring, and the new bars need to be added in the broodnest, not the honey storage area.


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## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

I was going to start a new thread, but my story fits right into this one. 

First year beek (Georgia) with some early Italians (3/26) and some later Carnis (4/30). Both hives started well enough. In particular, the Italians were just terrific. Building comb like crazy and gentle and productive. The Carnis are nice enough, but tend to curve their comb and glue everything together... they were my problem children. The Italians were my hands-down favorites.

When both hives got to about 12 bars of brood, I figured "that's big enough for the brood nest" and I started worrying mostly about the honey area of the hive, and stopped putting empty bars in the brood area. That was a rookie mistake; both hives swarmed at the same time, and my excellent Italian hive lost its returning virgin (probably to the brown thrasher I see swooping by the hive 15 times a day). My nicest, best hive went all Doctor Jekyll on me, and got really ugly and mean. The virgin for the carni hive made it back, but they had a grumpy 2 months as well. Both departing swarms ignored the really nice bait hive in my yard. 

I ended up buying a mated Italian/Russian/mutt queen from the nearly infamous "fat bee man" (who lives 30 minutes north of me, and seems to have plenty of queens). His queens actually have a very good reputation locally (I know 4 people who have 1 or more, and all are happy). She was released in a couple of days and went right to work.

So, today: my first fairly normal inspection in 2 months. Whew. No more loud roar or constant head butts... a fairly calm inspection. I've finally got sealed brood in both hives.

The only positives out of this fiasco: I got really long brood breaks in both hives, and my Italian hive (during their mean phase) stored about 60 pounds of honey. I had not intended to take any this first year, but they have like 20 bars of the stuff... I'm taking some.

So... I haven't killed them yet, but not for lack of trying.

To the topic at hand: keep adding to the brood nest for as long as they keep building!


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## bentonkb (May 24, 2016)

That is probably good advice, if the bees are using the new bars in the broodnest for brood then you are still in growth season. Trying to restrict the broodnest when they fill up some arbitrary number of bars is just asking for a swarm. Too bad you lost your new queen, though. If you can get into the hive before the swarm cells hatch its a good idea to pull out a frame with a swarm cell on it and make a small nuc. It doubles your chances of getting at least one mated queen. Having a nuc is always good insurance.


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## rv10flyer (Feb 25, 2015)

Try to inspect your hives every 5-7 days during swarm season. Make splits out of extra capped queen cells.


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## MartinW (Feb 28, 2015)

Hello kthoneybee,

---My question is, how much space should I give them in the hive? I'm currently giving them a lot of space but is that the right thing to do? 

It depends on your geography and your approach. Wyatt A. Mangum doesn't use follower boards in his system, according to his book. On the other hand, I've read about beekeepers with small hive beetle concerns that use them. In order to prevent swarming, IMO it's more important to keep your brood nest open (not honey bound) by adding additional bars - or bars with empty comb from other hives - during the flow. Michael Bush  writes about this.

---How do I determine what is too much and what is too little? 

You'll need to gauge for your area, bloom conditions, and TBH size. A TBH of three feet (24 bars) will need to be watched and split for example. A five foot hive (40 bars) provides more options, for example. The other thing is to get a sense of how many bees will emerge from a comb of closed brood. Your hive will get very crowded as those bees emerge if there is nothing for them to do. You'll need to stay in front of the growing size of your force of worker bees and expand the brood nest.

Good luck. It's my second year keeping several TBHs and I'm having fun. I hope you do too.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

When building up I don't like to add more than 1/3 of the space to be empty. Now that math does not always work. For example expending from a 5 frame to a 10 frame hive I am doubling their space. 50% of that space is empty. Once that is full I add a medium onto a deep. This is now adding 2/5ths more space which is a little better and is now about 40% new empty space. Once they fill that space I add another medium and am well within my empty space preferences. I take care when I do that doubling of their space that they are building up. Otherwise I would not give them that much space. I will sometimes take a 5 frame deep nuc and place another 5 frame deep over it if a colony is not in a growth spurt.


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