To much hive room?

[RangerBrad]

I have been using 2 hive bodies and what I've found is that the bees have filled their hive bodies first then start on the supers which leaves me with little honey. A couple of local beeks have told me that I am giving them to much hive body. That 1 deep and a medium super is plenty and that they had actually tried 2 deep hive bodies in the past and found the same that the bees had filled their bodies and the supers were filled last which cut down on the beeks honey take. Have any of yal experienced this. I always thought that they would fill honey from the top down meaning filling the supers first. Brad

[caticind]

How old is this hive?

[AR Beekeeper]

Filling the food chamber first is what I prefer mine to do because I desire colony survival more than I desire honey.  If you rob them to close you must be prepared to feed both in the fall and the next spring.  A medium food chamber of honey will last a colony until the following March in most years, but what if we have a cold, wet spring and the nectar flow is late?  The insurance of having 60 pounds of honey means better survival, larger populations and the chance to gather more nectar from early sources.

Some strains of bees naturally store nectar close to the brood, some will store close to the brood if the population is weak or the nectar flow is weak or intermittent.  If the queen is put down into the lower brood box and prevented from going above by an excluder then the bees store nectar first in the cells in the box above the excluder, then in the supers above. 

[Kathyp]

i let mine get a good store in the brood boxes before i put my supers on.  i am with AR.  the more they store, the less i have to feed.  if it's a bad  year, better they have it.

[sc-bee]

It's a location thing! Also depends on your intentions. If you plan on splits and dividing then two deeps may be preferred. If no splits 1 deep may serve you fine.

I run 1 deep and leave one or two shallows of honey for winter. Most folks in my area run a 1 deep configuration with whatever honey they want to leave for winter.

Size of box to me is arbitrary anyway! A box is a box regardless of size , just a matter of terminology in which to discuss it. Other than I have never heard of anyone running all shallows.

I also do not run an excluder ---- so they make brood what they wish --- at times I have had 1 deep and 3 shallows of brood. They later begin to cut back as they wish.

Otherwords alot of it is just preference.

[RangerBrad]

The hive is 3 years old. Just did a split. Both deeps had 3 frames each of brood and the rest was all capped honey. continuing up, the first medium super had 7 frames of capped and uncapped honey and the top medum super was dry. Both supers allready had drawn wax from last years harvest. Brad

[joebrown]

If the queen is put down into the lower brood box and prevented from going above by an excluder then the bees store nectar first in the cells in the box above the excluder, then in the supers above. 

I always remove my queen excluders in the fall. Do you guys leave them on all winter? I am always afraid the cluster will not be able to move up into the supers if needed if the queen is trapped below!

[caticind]

The hive is 3 years old. Just did a split. Both deeps had 3 frames each of brood and the rest was all capped honey. continuing up, the first medium super had 7 frames of capped and uncapped honey and the top medum super was dry. Both supers allready had drawn wax from last years harvest. Brad

That doesn't sound like too much hive room, it sounds like too little.  That's a really small brood nest, to my thinking, and they are hemmed in by honey.  I would give them another deep with full frames pulled up in between the empty ones.  Or, consider moving your empty super to the position second from the top to encourage foragers to go through.

[sc-bee]

Sounds like no room for the queen to lay and she will not cross the honey barrier. Consolidate your brood in one deep and put all the honey you can in the other deep. Add the empty medium above the deep of brood and the honey above that.  Don't get hung up on the size of the boxes.Later in the season rotate the boxes to meet your needs. This is all if you do not want three deeps and I would think not????
Or, extract some honey frames from the deeps and add back the drawn empty comb. Probably the best way to keep the brood in the deeps, if that is what you want and it is feasible.

[RangerBrad]

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

Instead of them putting honey in the supers they pretty much are trying to honey bound their own hive bodies. Both of the supers were put on in March and instead of filling them they filled their hive bodies to almost honey bound stage before starting to fill the supers. Hence what the beeks were saying is that the extra hony should of been in honey supers vs the two hive bodies as they will not consume that much during the course of our winters and as the frames in the deeps are HSC they are difficult or impossible to extract. Brad