Switching from deep brood chambers to medium brood chambers

[talkingamoeba]

I tried a search but got no info so I'll ask. How do I switch from deep hive bodies to mediums? How do you get the colony transfered over? Thanks for your time.

[Joseph Clemens]

There are many different ways this can be accomplished. One way would be to put a super of medium frames above the deep brood supers. Once the bees move into the medium frames you could be sure the queen is in the medium too. If necessary you can put her in there. Then use a queen excluder/includer to keep her out of the deep supers, until all the brood there emerges - once it has, you can remove the deep and replace it with more medium supers.

[talkingamoeba]

Thanks Joe, that seemed like a good idea to me but wanted the voice of experience as my "good" ideas often aren't.

[Paraplegic Racehorse]

Even easier than Joseph's method:

Give them all season. Super at the bottom board, rather than above the brood chamber. As the existing brood emerges, the cells will be filled with nectar/honey/pollen and the queen will be forced to move down.

Harvest your deep in the fall and the colony will then be housed entirely in mediums.

[Michael Bush]

It depends on how patient you are.  The main concepts to keep in mind is that pulling honey out of a hive is a typical procedure as long as they have enough food and a flow going.  Pulling brood sets them back a lot.  So the idea is to get the brood out of the deep.  I'd stick a medium or two in the middle of the deep (while pulling a frame or two of honey or pollen) and when they queen has some eggs on those, move them up into a medium above with an excluder below to keep the queen out of the deep.  In three weeks the worker brood will all have emerged and you can take the whole box.

A variation of this is to cut two frames of open brood out and tie them into mediums and put those and the queen above the excluder.

Of course the other is to just put the medium on and wait for them to move up and then add the excluder.

I would not put the queen above the excluder without some brood with her.