balancing hive space

[pdmattox]

How do you balance to much or not enough space in a hive?  The reason i ask is i have a hive that is dead now from wax moth and local guys say the bees had to much space and at this time of year they should have a small beard by day and a bigger one at night.  That being said i thought i wanted more space for the bees to not want to swarm.  What are your thoughts?

[latebee]

I guess it depends on how many bees are in the colony. If you have 15 or more frames of bees and brood in two deeps-4 supers of drawn comb works about right for me. If you have 6 to 8 frames of bees and brood try just 2  deeps with no supers. Anything less and I would make up a 5 frame nuc and let it grow,because between the robbers and the wax moths the colony will have a rough go of it.I think bearding is a response to heat and not just overcrowding.Checking for swarm cells on the bottom third of the frames will tell you if you are in need of more brood space,and you can adjust accordingly with a few different methods all mentioned here in previous posts.

[Brian D. Bray]

Prior to the advent of nucs for developing colonies of bees in a more controlled method we used to cut a piece of plywood to slide between the frames so that it went from the top to the bottom of the box and we could actually move the plywood barrier one frame at a time as the hive grew.  Some beekeepers still use this method in conjunction with nucs.

Nursing a hive along a frame at a time is time consuming so it is better to do it several frames at a time if you choose to use this method.

[Finsky]

You live in warm climate.

In summer room is enough if bees occupy half of the topmost box and brood are  in lower boxes.

In spring I put more room under the brood area. When yield starts I put new boxes over the brood area.

When hive is small or nuc  and it is full of honey or brood, I take frames and give to bigger hive. I give larvae frames so big hive feed them.

In the yield season I put small hives together that bees are able to handle honey yield and there are enough space for honey. On good nectar field small hive will be full in few days and then it swarms without warning.

[Michael Bush]

It is difficult to give too much room to a booming strong hive.  It's easy to overwelm a small struggling hive with too much room.  So, it all depends.

I start all my mating nucs as two medium frames in a two frame box and a handful of bees will establish a strong nuc.  If I put that same handful in a ten frame box they will die.