changing frame sizes

[Hi-Tech]

I have always used medium hive bodies for my bees. 3 mediums for brood and mediums for supers. This keeps the weight down but more importantly makes all of my equipment consistent.

I am buying a nuke from a local beekeeper and of course, he uses deeps. I do have one deep hive body and a few frames to put these newly purchased nuke frames in but I would like to slowly work them back to medium bodies and frames.

Any suggestions?

[mikecva]

I made the mistake about not asking the nuc size and I also ended up with full size frames. A fellow beek said that he either cuts off the bottom of the frames (not the choice I chose) or construct a small frame to raise my medium box up and put the nuc frames the the bottom brood box on one end (5 and 5) then after the bees move off the nuc frames, remove them and move the medium frames to the middle and put regular frames in on the sides. As a side note, I did have to throw out some burr comb from the bottom of my medium frames.  -Mike

[Hi-Tech]

I like that Idea. I was contemplating just leaving the full size hive body as the main brood box but the OCD in me screams at not converting it back to mediums..

[drjeseuss]

I got a nice deal on frames once at a local store.  I was paying attention to the price and didn't notice that I was buying shallows, not mediums...   doh.  I had a box full of them, with burr across the bottoms in all directions.  I was then in a similar situation to yours.  I checkered them across two boxes, with mediums between.  As noted before, once the bees built these out, I moved the off-size frames to the outsides to let the brood out.  The bees began  storing nectar there.  Over the season I moved these frames up, and finally out entirely.  It won't happen overnight, but with some planning, you can migrate them into your harvest before the season ends.  My shallows fit inside the mediums, unlike the deeps will for you, but I too like the idea of a shim to make the medium a deep.  Then when you migrate those frames up to your supers, just migrate the shim along as well.  Another trick I found to work quite well was adding a spacer to the bottom of the shorter frames, just an offcut of 1-by nailed (but not glued) to the bottom of the frame.  It gave the bees a ladder, but prevented cross-comb/burr.  This likely would be difficult in your case, as you'll be moving TO the shorter frames, not FROM them.  I was able to remve the spacers once I pulled the frames, but your goal will be to leave the mediums, and likely won't want to fuss with nail-pulling on a populated frame.  Maybe you could attach spacers with fishing line or similar, so they can be removed when you migrate your shim up with the mediums.

As an aside, how about putting mediums below, and the deeps above, with hope of the bees drawing the lower box for brood and moving out of thedeeps outright...  through the season adding new growth between the mediums and deep.

[Hi-Tech]

That's great input as well and gives me some options. I think either way I am going to have to keep an eye on the burr comb..

[Hi-Tech]

What are your thoughts on this.

> I place a medium hive body with 10 new frames on my bottom board.
> I place a deep hive body (1 do have 1) on top of the medium.
> After the nuke has adjusted to the new area, I will transfer the 5 nuke deep frames into the deep (on top of the medium) on one side with no other deep frames in that body.

The hope is they would start to fill in the center of the medium below them and start raising brood there. When all brood is gone from the deep frames, remove the deep and replace with a medium.

That leaves a lot of empty space in the deep for them to burr up but it might work...

Thoughts?

[Hi-Tech]

Or...

> I place a medium hive body with 10 new frames on my bottom board.
> I build a special cover to go on top of the medium with a cutout for a nuke sized deep body to sit on top of that
> I build a temp 5 frame deep to sit on top of the medium
> After the nuke has adjusted to the new area, I will transfer the 5 nuke deep frames into the deep

The hope is they would start to fill in the center of the medium below them and start raising brood there. When all brood is gone from the deep frames, remove the deep and replace with a medium.

[drjeseuss]

When I'm building up, I add the next super and bring up a frame or two as a guide with empty frame between. As they fill that in I'll add another and so on. I've had no issue with ANY burr outside the frames..  then again my girls tend to stay between the lines anyway. I rarely get burr anywhere even with feeding shims and such. Likely your plan will work, just don't fall behind adding empty frames or they may punish you.

[drjeseuss]

> I build a special cover to go on top of the medium with a cutout for a nuke sized deep body to sit on top of that.

My local bee store makes/sells this item, a five to ten adapter. This should work well also, and may be less fussy.

[Hi-Tech]

This is my first time buying a nuke and in my excitement I didn't ask near enough questions. Only to find out late it was deep frames, he lives an hour away, it was more expensive than I though and I have to replace the frames he is giving me... He is an old keep I met at the bee club I just joined.

I have always been a swarm or a package guy (got a package of Caucasians coming next week!!) so this has been a bit of a learning curve.

[Hi-Tech]

> I build a special cover to go on top of the medium with a cutout for a nuke sized deep body to sit on top of that.

My local bee store makes/sells this item, a five to ten adapter. This should work well also, and may be less fussy.

I live pretty close to Kelly Bee company. I may check and see if they carry one..

[rookie2531]

If you decide to wait until she lays on the medium, you might want to put a queen excluder on so she don't go back to the deeps to lay, which I suspect she will.

Also, I advertised 6 deep nucs and 4 medium nucs this year (first time selling nucs) and the 6 deeps were requested right away, but no takers on the mediums. One person did ask, but was too far away.

[OldMech]

Just use the deep, and let them fill it, add a medium on top, and when they fill that give them another medium..  When Spring arrives, those bees will be in the top box.. rotate the deep out and give them a new medium.  Store the deep and drawn frames for the next time necessity calls.
   

[Hi-Tech]

Just use the deep, and let them fill it, add a medium on top, and when they fill that give them another medium..  When Spring arrives, those bees will be in the top box.. rotate the deep out and give them a new medium.  Store the medium and drawn frames for the next time necessity calls.

Thanks. I think this will be the easiest option with little disturbance to the bees...

[little john]

I'm in the process of trying to resolve the problem you describe - at this very moment - but whether it will work or not - who knows ?

I have a fairly strong nuc on 12" deep frames, and I want to steer them onto 9" frames. Of course in the normal course of events such a 3" difference could either be taken-up by the use of an eke nadired below the shallower box, or live with some natural comb hanging down from the bottom of shallow frames inside a deep box - but what I really wanted to do was to establish a good reliable method of 'steering' bees from one size frame onto another.

Now with a Long Hive, this is a simple procedure - just put any frame to be cleared of brood behind the stores frames. The queen will not cross honeycombs to re-lay in a comb thus placed, and the worst that can happen is that the girls will place some nectar in it. But with these vertical boxes I'm trying a method decribed in: http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/clearcombstores.html

Now this is really targeted at clearing stores, but I'm trying to clear brood as well as stores.

The only variation I've set up is to reverse the lower (12") box, so that it's entrance is now at the rear, whereas the bees - having become conditioned to entering from the front - are now using the front entrance to the upper (9") box. Otherwise it's the same set-up as described in the link.

I'll keep you guys posted as to whether it worked or not during the next few weeks.

LJ