Medium Boxes

[Waveeater]

This may already be posted somewhere.

I am running all medium boxes on my hives and was wondering is there a preferred number to be at for the winter. I usually have three boxes for Brood and then honey suppers over that. Should I reduce them down to three or four total for winter. I've heard everything from it doesn't matter, too as little as possible. Right now most hives are at 5 boxes.

I will say I have 8 frame boxes with SBB's and will use quilt boxes on top for winter. Last year I left them anywhere from 16-20 frames of honey each which ended up being plenty for this past winter.

Thoughts? Comments? Advice?

Thank you.

[Michael Bush]

> I am running all medium boxes on my hives and was wondering is there a preferred number to be at for the winter

In my climate, with a typical Italian sized cluster and ten frame boxes I would want three.  But clusters vary a lot in size so it could run from two to four... or if it was a late swarm, maybe even one.

[Oblio13]

I use all mediums here in New Hampshire. For both eight-frame and five-frame hives, three boxes overwinter well. Four is better. Two can make it with winter sugar patties on the top frames, but they have a tendency to starve if I'm not conscientious.

[Waveeater]

Thank you greatly for the advice.

With last year being my first winter i took only the top box from three hives for extraction purposes in October. I then put them back on since we had a goldenrod bloom. They partially filled the top box again but they were not capped. The bottom boxes were empty except for a bit of pollen. This left me with 5 boxes on, heading into November. I wasn't sure what to do. I asked another beekeeper  and he told me to leave them all on due to my inexperience. He said it would be fine and would be better than taking a chance on killing the queen by accident, so that's what i did. It did make things a little challenging this spring however due to the queen getting ahead of me and laying eggs all over the place. I finally got them reduced back down to where i could manage them better.

Just curious as to what others who run Medium boxes do.

[Oblio13]

I harvest boxes from the top, and then add boxes to the bottom. It's extra work, but that way they never have to go into winter with a partially-filled top box. The bees prefer working down, anyway, and I'm convinced that "nadiring" rather than "supering" reduces swarming.

[Acebird]

I harvest late where there is not a chance of nectar coming in until spring.  So if the hive has 7-8 boxes on it I will take supers off and leave two boxes of honey on.  If it has 5 boxes on it I will take honey off until it has a full box and maybe a half under it.  Typically only one box harvested.  If the hive has 4 or less boxes I don't touch it.

[Michael Bush]

I don't do the simplified x number of boxes for every hive for winter because of differing sizes of clusters, but the simple math of mediums vs deeps is this:

2-10 frame deeps = 3-10 frame mediums = 4-8 frame mediums