pulling a deep to transition to mediums but it's "full" of honey

[twb]

So, when I pulled the lower deep brood chamber I found it was fairly heavy with honey.  Tell me if what I did is reasonable.  I placed the upper deep on the bottom board (that's where I believe the queen is--too cool to check yet) then I placed a medium with drawn and starter strips mixed, then a queen excluder with the old bottom deep and its honey on top.  Sound like a plan? They eat the honey and I remove the top deep later.

[Moonshae]

Sounds good, as long as the queen is actually in the bottom deep, and it doesn't get cold enough to force the bees to cluster in the upper deep with the honey, leaving the queen behind.

[pdmattox]

Everything sounds good to me. The only thing I would do different is pull the excluder off.

[twb]

Everything sounds good to me. The only thing I would do different is pull the excluder off.

Thankyou for your responses and reassurance.  Curious to know why you would pull the excluder when the goal is to get this deep box off the hive eventually.  Is the thinking that if the queen lays in the top deep you can pull those individual frames down into the bottom deep eventually and then get it off the hive? Again, many thanks.

[buzzbee]

You pull the excluder off so that if the cluster moves to the the box the queen is not in,she doesn't get trapped on the wrong side of the excluder alone.

[ElDoBill]

I did something similar on March 8th, placing a medium between the two deep supers. However the honey was in the top and the bees in the bottom. I had no drawn comb so I used plain foundation.  Unfortunately this colony is very slow to decide to draw out comb on plastic foundation, ML PF120, and i believe they started eating the necter stored in the bottom super.  They developed dysentary about a week later and it lasted until I pulled the medium out and reinserted it on the top.  I checked April 4th and they were doing good.  The medium is still not drawn, I plan to leave it where it is and let them draw it when they need it. 

[twb]

Just this evening I peeked in to see if I could take out the top-most deep but I found in two hives what looked like bees on brood.  It was cool temps so I did not pull frames but I am almost sure that queenie crossed thru the medium (maybe laying there, too, on the way).  So now should I, when the weather warms, consolidate the two deeps into one so I can finally pull a deep off the hive? And if I have have the good fortune to have too many frames of brood for one deep can I mix them into other hives?  I really want them to draw out the starter strips in the medium (have strips and drawn in medium box).

[Michael Bush]

Sure.  Leave them the brood combs and whatever honey and pollen will fit in one box and pull the rest.