Single Brood Or Double Brood In Beehive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ก.ย. 2022
- Single Brood Or Double Brood In Beehive that is the question!
Now I have been keeping bees since 2010 and I have tried double brood, single brood and brood and a half over the years.
This is one of those beekeeping topics that beekeepers vary massively on. Some beekeepers prefer single brood chambers others prefer the brood and a half and the rest go with double brood boxes.
Now for me living in Wales in the UK I keep everything as single brood box with all my hives. Commercial or National hive they get a single brood box.
Personally I found very little incentive to run bees on more than a single brood box in this part of the world. We don't get massive crops and the bees don't build up into monster hives....well some of them do!
That said I found that I get the same amount of honey from single brood box hives as I did with double. I keep bees for honey so why have the extra work of inspecting two boxes when you can get away with one!
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Wow! Lots of supers in this apiary. This is the first year I will be able to put supers on…I have about three per hive for both hives.
Hopefully you’ll need a lot more!
Funny thing is single brood method was originally done to save on equipment.
In canada we run triples or doubles thru -40 winters in groups of 4 wrapped in r 20 insulation and average over 90 kg per hive
For me in Colorado US, it's about leaving the bees enough feed for the winter. Running 2 deep langstroth leaves more margin for seasonality. In a warm winter and spring they will need a full deep of honey. In the cold ones a single box will be space constrained and won't build up as fast. I do it both ways and don't like to feed so those single boxes need to be packed going into winter.
Closing comment to stir the pot o you, Mean bees, that's how you make more honey!
Brilliant video. I run single up in scotland I find they find it easier to manage the cluster through winter and less isolation starvation. As long as they are super heavy going into winter.
You make a very good point, as everywhere is different, here in north Surrey I'm moving over from double broods to single 14x12 broods. However, this year the bees are beating me as I'm having trouble condensing them down into the broods as there are way too many bees for this time of year. One thing I have found is that everything 14x12 is pricey, and if I can't get some cheaper stuff in the Winter sales I may have to curtail my 14x12 plans.
14x12 is a great size. Very similar to commercial. But both are very hard to handle and prone to braking when pull of honey.
Still more positives than negative. I wish the national was slightly bigger that’s it’s biggest downside
I will be testing single brood this year. North Essex.
Thank you Sir 🫡
First off congratulations on a good season for your bees and you.🤠👍
Doesn't it depend a lot of where ya live and what you are trying to accomplish. (generally) From a lot of the keepers videos I've watched over this first season, singles seem better for honey, while doubles seem better for growing early Spring splits?
First lessons I learnt in my new beekeeping life was 1.No-absolutes, it's ALL give and take, 2.Bees DON"T read the books(crazy bees), 3.Beekeeping is ALWAYS personal to the keeper, the bee, the location, 4.Happy Family, Happy Bees, Happy Keeper(Maybe the best).👍 Ty for the great info, Blessed Days...
That’s 100% true. If your only keeping bees for splits then double brood them and split them regularly. But by doing that it will drastically effect the honey crop.
Those lessons are very true!! 😊👍🏻
@@gwenyngruffydd Cool, cool I did learn some thing from my 1000+ hours of bee videos from you all. 🙂 Have a great day.
You too 😊👍🏻
Good video. I ran double brood this year but think I'll try single brood next year 👍
Try them all and see what you liked the most. 😊👍🏻
I use double poly but I have 5 months of cold shitty weather but you can do singles I do what ever the size of my clusters in the fall
i had bees in south africa and now i have some hives here in Poland - always singles worked best for me :-)
😊👍🏻
what a great season 2022 was
Just go 14X12 brood and forget about double brood!
Our first year trying deeps 👍
Cracking video and just in time - i'm in a 'debate' with a guy in the US who insists you can't get 70lb's of honey in a single brood to overwinter them even despite me showing a weight graph of one of my hives since last winter! The daft thing is many US beekeepers run single brood on Langstroth hives (as do I with Flowhives) that have far more bee capacity than Nationals. Your video should put this debate to bed 😁
Thank you 😊
Tell that guy I'm in the US and I only run double deep Langs, but I usually run 9 frame spacing in the top box once the flow starts and I pull the capped frames and give them either drawn comb or foundation 4 at a time and my 4 established colonies all made over 150 pounds of surplus honey each, plus supplied bees and brood to start 4 - 5 frame nuks that are well, plus come spring I'll make 4 splits off the double deeps.
Look up Carters Hill Apiaries, that old man runs about 50 hives and averages well over 350 pounds per hive, lol he uses a 6 foot tall step ladder to put the last 3 supers on.
I used to always overwinter my bees in single brood chambers and I'm not far away in Ceredigion so similar weather. I am not a commercial beekeeper though and with age I am getting lazy too, so now I tend to overwinter the bees in a brood and a super. This way I can assure that they have enough resources regardless of what kind of winter we get, and that is really the problem I feel we are facing nowadays. We never now if the winter will be long and hard, or often with an early warm-up followed by prolonged frost in March, or if it will be a mild winter with hardly any frost. I find that I can feed the bees depending on what Ivy flow we get just about now, and when that is over I really don't have to do anything until spring aside from the occasional hefting in January and February. I think it might be worth removing the supers during the Varroa treatment as to not contaminate them but again, not being a commercial beekeeper it is not a big job to do.
Fair points, thanks for taking the time to comment.
Very true about the winters. We can’t even predict what it’s going to be like.
Learn to rely on your heart compass for discernment form thee most high!!! TRUST the feeling you get in this space! Heavy chest means NO do not light airy chest means YES proceed! LEARN TO TRUST THEE MOST HIGH the heart is direct communication center!!! All around the world they are hyping long dark cold winter this year and the years prior and we have not received that. I was shone that the almanac is wrong on purpose to mess us farmers all up! Theirs a glow ball age end uh to make sure farmers are out of the food game because they don’t want healthy people or animals living! They cant profit off us or manipulate any of us if we are healthy!! I was shone it will be a very short mild winter around the world! That the only place that we will see major events going on in is the California cascade mountain region and it will be continuously hit with blizzards but that’s the only spot in the entire map I was shone anything out of normalcy meaning what they are forcing and have engineered to take place! So what is going to happen in California is NOT NATURE!!!! LEARN TO TRUST YOUR HEARTS EVERYONE!!!! Times for proper discernment are here! If anyone lies to you or you tell a lie to another your heart will be and feel very heavy if you’re living honestly TRUSTING your heart compass and thee most high guidance your heart will always be light and whenever a person is honest you’ll feel more lightness in chest to confirm truths told to you! The more you rely on your heart over your brain THE MORE YOU STRENGTHEN YOUR CONNECTION TO THEE MOST HIGH!!! Love and light to you all!!! Shalom 🕊💖✨👑💛✨
@@Stephenvguerra I don't think there is a problem by keeping you bees in a single brood chamber, a double brood chamber, or a single brood chamber and a super. They are all fairly common and it really just comes down to preference in the end. However, any equipment that is left on the hive all year round will usually be exposed to things like Varroa treatment, which depending on treatment will contaminate your frames, meaning you cannot harvest honey from them.
Excellent opportunity to give viewers a quick lesson in counting in Welsh there; variety if nothing else. I'm not from Wales, nor a Welsh speaker - just a learner - but a few quick bits of Cymraeg can't hurt. Get your kids to teach us. Diolch from Aberystwyth.
That’s a great shout 😊👍🏻
I've been trying different set ups this year and have found the same as you, I will go back to single brood next year, probably commercial brood boxes to use with my existing national shallows.
I am going to condense my doubles and brood and half to singles today.
Should I leave the honey in the top box on the hives for winter feed or will it be too big a space for overwintering the bees?
You can do, or if you haven’t fed at all you could potentially extract that honey if there is no brood there. If you take all the honey off you may need to feed them. All depends how heavy the bottom brood box is
Most of mine are on double nationals and this year I’ve tried the commercial and Langstroth hives.
My main problem is the National is to small, the double is to big. The brood and a half is to troublesome.
The commercial is to expensive so it’s down to the Langstroth hive for me.
If I started all over again I would go with langstroth too
Take a look at Canadian bee keepers blog.
He starts in a single broods them up to double deeps then shakes them down into a single for production an then over winters inside a shed.
He’s located in Manitoba Canada.
Yes I watch Ian 😊
Fantastic video thank you. I had all double brood but I'm definately going to try single next season to cut down on work a little. One question....what do you do when you take all the supers off? Do you give them another box to avoid congestion or are they ok with the single when all supers are gone?
Normally I give them nothing, but if it’s a really big hive il leave them a super and brood and a half them for the winter.
@Gwenyn Gruffydd Awesome content! Can I ask you what is the brand of the suit and veil you are wearing in this video??? Thank you in advance!
Thank you 😊
It’s a swienty Breezer suit. We sell them on our website 😊
2 guestions, 1 How does the national brood compare to the standard Langstroth in relation to volume and about of bees it can hold? 2 Since your bees are mainly British blacks, do the more aggressive hives tend to make more honey and docile ones? I ask because I have a wild swarm I caught March 28th this year, 1/2 the bees are shiny black with only fuzz on their thorax and head and the other 1/2 are a yellowish grey and full fuzzy, they are aggressive and you have to suit up fully to work them, but they made close to 200 pounds of surplus honey this year, BTW I'm in middle Georgia at 425 feet elevation and we never get snow and my bees get to fly at least 1/3 of the time every month of the year, we had only 6 days below freezing for the year. I'm in the peach and cotton belt of my state so my bees never see a heavy dearth until frost kills the goldenrod which is usually late October.
Hi Carl,
The langstroth is a much bigger and better hive than the nationals.
I found that buckfast bees produce more honey than the black bees in most years.
But the black bees winter much better and consume less food.
Pros and cons, that’s why I keep the two of them 😊
I like to experiment with my bees so I do some weird things from time to time just to see what happens, you should try a Langstroth brood box under national supers on several colonies using an adapter lid, I have a 1/2" thick plywood lid that has rectangular holes cut that set 5 frame nuks over the brood box and wait for swarm cells to show up then split to make nuks, I also nuks for honey production this way and makes it easy to pull a 5 frame deep nuk of honey than waiting for the bees make a 10 frame deep full, just a thought you might consider, Happy Holidays my friend.
That sounds very interesting
Hi do you ever run into problems blocking space with winter feed for them to raise winter bees/space in spring to raise brood? Thanks, I enjoy your videos
No, not had a problem running singles at all
I wonder if - to your point - this is about a combination of local weather conditions and available forage? Down here in Kent, my double-brood hive produced two supers more than my single-brood hives. It seems that numbers matter. The upper brood chamber contained frames of honey but also brood. As an added advantage, that hive didn't swarm, I'm assuming in part because it had plenty of space to expand in spring. If you have forage, it seems to be a matter of the length of the season and in Kent that will be longer than the west of the UK.
Could be….but bees on double brood will still swarm. It will be hart breaking when you see the size of the swarm if you can’t retrieve it.
How many hives are on double and how many are on singles with you? Did every double brood beat the best single?
In wales we get a lot of honey later in the year with little spring honey. In Kent no doubt you get excellent spring crops.
Different areas different methods.
You are going to have to give up sleep to extract all that honey 🤣🤣 Good problem to have though 👍 So glad your girls have rewarded you for all your hard work 😃🇬🇧
Thanks Glynis 😊
I've also come to the decision that single brood is the way to go. I get a way better crop on single than double.
Me too 😊
Thanks for answering that, i've been wondering about brood and a half. I did try it over the summer and as you say, it's full of honey! Something i have noted, one of my supers has castellated rails that hold 11 frames, the supers i bought from you have runners and hold 12 frames and i have been advised to just use 10 frames. What is the difference?
Running 11 or 10 is good. The benefit is less work to fill the box in the workshop.
But the idea is the bees fill them out fatter. Ideal for cut comb.
Downside is they can build wild comb in between sometimes.
My favourite method is using a Manley frames. It’s the best of both worlds
@@gwenyngruffydd I did notice that the 12 frame super had thinner comb which sits nicely in my jars. The chunkier stuff still looks good but because of the round neck on the jar, they seem to want to move around more in there. Also, all the frames were perfect, no burr or wildcomb.
There's one poly Abelo box between some wooden boxes do abelo poly hives normally fit with wooden hives or did you make some fix to make all fit together?
You can mix and match them but their best if you keep them the same
Are you on single brood all summer or just when the brood nest starts to shrink?
All year.
hello, do you get much swarming. do you keep taking frames out the brood to giver her constant room ?
I get swarming regardless of space…it’s a natural process for them.
Taking a split from them does help to reduce it though.
Do you double up on nucs brood boxes to over winter.. I’ve got a spare Abelo nuc and thought about trying it.
We do on the big nucs yes.
Brrrruude
As a German, love the dialect :D
I love the German accent too! 😊
@@gwenyngruffydd I think if we Germans would learn English in a Welch or Scottish dialect in school and only hear it all around, we would understand and learn it quicker, its easier for us I think.
there's always the subtitles...
Will you graft queens from the monster hive?
No, I should though.
Are the commercial boxes the same size as national? How are you using them together?
They are the same dimensions so are completely compatible with national. The frames are bigger and the box are deeper too.
With you west wales single brood. Double is too much work and time and half just complicates things
Agree 👍🏻
hi , i just checked two of my hives, singles with white dot buckfast, i saw the queen in both, they are packed with bees but have no capped brood , eggs or larva . should i be worried or are they just on a break till the ivy kicks in . all the rest of my hives are still laying ( i'm from devon uk and always single brood )
Does the queen have space to lay?
@@gwenyngruffydd the bees are back filling the brood nest a bit, but there are hundreds of empty cells for her to lay in if she wanted to. they are still bringing in pollen and aren't very grumpy. i guess its a case of wait and see with my fingers crossed :)
If their leaving empty space and bringing in pollen….that’s a really good sign.
@@gwenyngruffydd thanks for the replies 👍
I am warking honey beekeeping in pakestan since 1988
Bravo👍
I'm considering trying single brood chambers here on the east coast of the United States. My first thought was that the hives would grow too fast for me to manage but I realized the only difference here is a queen excluder. I'm not sure why I don't see many more Americans doing this, it makes a lot of sense to me.
I think you have a lot of Italian line bees there. It’s hard to keep them in a single box.
What bees have you got?
I prefer single boxes all the way though! 😄
@@gwenyngruffydd that is true, most around here have Italian and that is what we have.
Should still be able to run them on single boxes regardless.
Everything here in the USA is based off of commercial double Deeps being sent out to California for pollination. I started doing singles a couple years ago and don’t look back.
Asalam alaikom I wiesh honey bees warking
Good queens is the best 😉❤
Single brood every time!
brrrrood