Single box beekeeping or not?

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts/practices are re this.

Do the vast majority of Scottish beekeepers keep native(ish) bees on a single National/Smith brood box with standard deep frames? Or are there successful practitioners of brood and half (eugh!) or double brood box beekeeping? Can strains of native(ish) bees fill a double brood box?

For myself I have always used single national boxes with standard frames and found them just about adequate. I've thought about switching to 14x12 frames and if anyone uses them I'd be interested to hear their experiences.

Gerry

I have native type dark bees and they fit nicely into a single national with standard deeps. If a colony is making a lot of brood I remove a frame or two of sealed brood to bolster weaker colonies.
The only time I have ever used double brood is when combining two colonies, one of which is queenless. I try and get them back into a single brood as soon as feasible.

My native types are perfectly happy in a single national BB. I do give the more numerous ones an extra super of stores for the winter if I think they need it but always take them down to single BB in the spring and super up early if they need more space for stores. The first super is usually full of pollen until autumn, when they fill the arch with heather or ivy.

Welcome aboard Gerry.

I flip between a single brood box and something more, depending on circumstances and the bees. At the moment I have three out of four survivors on brood and a half, but that was only because my feeding wasn't as extensive as it should have been last autumn (ducks slightly in case Calum is watching! Did you enjoy your break Calum?). Usually I would winter bees in a single box, sometimes brood and a half.

I do use two brood boxes for some colonies during the summer. Those powerful ones early in the season may get a second brood box and then, at the end of the oilseed rape, that gives me a chance to split colonies to make nucs or just artificial swarms. Either using natural queen cells or queen cells raised from eggs introduced into these colonies.

A major commercial beekeeper near here likes to run colonies on double brood boxes through the summer, saying that it maximises his heather crop.

A friend of mine further west - where the arable land is petering out - doesn't use double brood boxes as much but runs some of his colonies on 14x12s.

The second box - when empty - comes in handy for housing bucket feeders too.

best wishes

Gavin

Thanks for the replies. My thinking on 14x12 is that it can be a bit of a squeeze with them just in a single National box. Whoever designed it couldn't have made it just a little bigger?! Not keen at all on brood and a half in the season - a complete sotter (sp?) as they would say in Moray. But I have wintered them as well with a super of stores on top of the brood box. Can't imagine native bees filling two boxes with brood or is it just the queens I've had?

Gerry

You could always try 16x10 comercials.I've used them for years down south (midlands) but find that ordinary nationals on a single brood box quite adequate up here in the S.West.The colder temperatures up here seem to slow down brood development.

Five out of my six colonies are on fourteen by twelve frames in smith hives. For many years I kept my bees on B.S. deep Hoffman frames in single brood boxes. I didn't like the idea of brood and a half but I found a single B.B. left my bees short of room and they stored lots of pollen in the first super. So in 2002 I decided to switch to fourteen by twelve frames. How I went about that is a long story and I made a few mistakes.

After eight years I would say the jury is still out for me on the benefits of fourteen by twelve frames. On the plus side the bees have plenty of room and if the weather is good they can easily fill three to four supers and they don't store pollen in the first super.

On the minus side an empty fourteen by twelve B.B. from beekeeping suppliers is about sixty pounds. The frames full of stores are heavy and can be difficult to handle especially the short lugged Smiths. If the weather is bad the bees aren't too keen to draw out such big areas of foundation and they are also fond of chewing away the foundation at the bottom of the frames. With such a big brood area to look after, they will quickly use up all their stores in poor weather. As I'm the only beekeeper in Orkney with fourteen by twelve frames I can't do swaps with other beekeepers.

I still intend to stick with my fourteen times twelve B.B. but I will also use B.S. deep B.B.’s as well. It looks like fourteen by twelve is getting more popular as Thornes are doing extension kits.

The choice is yours.