Brood and a half

[Mellifera Crofter]

A couple of my brood-and-a-half hives have just about empty brood boxes but with quite a bit of honey and nectar in the supers. I was going to leave them like that so that they can have easy access to the honey and because it doesn't bother me if the queens start to lay in the supers - but now I wonder whether an empty brood box, and the gap between the boxes, might become a hindrance next spring. Do you think this arrangement might restrict the queens' laying and should I swap the boxes around so that the supers are at the bottom? At the moment the supers are still free of brood. I'm a bit reluctant to swap the boxes around because it seems to me that I'll just give the bees a whole lot of extra work carrying all the honey up to the brood box.
Kitta

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Kitta
If I was intending to feed them syrup I would move the supers to the bottom and once the feeding was over put them back up top

[Mellifera Crofter]

Thanks DR. I am, or will be, feeding them. Why would you move the super back up? Wouldn't it be empty of honey by then?
Kitta

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi
I don't think they will move the honey while they are getting syrup from above especially any capped stuff
You can't always tell what they are going to do though, as we all know :)

[Mellifera Crofter]

Thanks, DR - that makes sense. I'll try that.
Kitta

[GRIZZLY]

Just what I am doing Kitta. I put mine on brood and a half mid summer.I'm just feeding hard and am letting them do their own thing. I will stop feeding when they won't take any more and are presumably full up.

[Adam]

I don't do brood and a half but I do put a super of stores under a fairly full brood box around the end of September/early October. In spring the super is usually empty and can be withdrawn. If it's left for too long the queen can start to lay in it.
I did read elsewhere about someone that had an almost empty brood box (might have been a 14 x12) with a super of stores underneath. Then fed fondant over winter. The bees got stuck in the super and ran out of food and couldn't bridge the gap to the fondant above.
If your brood box doesn't have much in it and you are Ok about laying in the supers, then I might be inclined to leave them as they are and just ensure there's enough food in the hive. I have to point out that I am from the "southern edges of Scotland*" so what works for me over winter may not work for somewhere further north.

* I remember from schoolboy history that James VI of Scotland became James 1 of England in 1603 when Elizabeth died, so we are ALL Scottish!

[Feckless Drone]

* I remember from schoolboy history that James VI of Scotland became James 1 of England in 1603 when Elizabeth died, so we are ALL Scottish![/QUOTE]

Adam - no, no, no. Don't start that! Go back a bit and you then get Henry VII (English), Margaret (Danish), you hit the Tudor line (Welsh) then back to the French in time and so it goes. We're even more mixed up than the "commercial" bee population of Tayside.

[prakel]

Adam - no, no, no. Don't start that! Go back a bit and you then get Henry VII (English), Margaret (Danish), you hit the Tudor line (Welsh) then back to the French in time and so it goes. We're even more mixed up than the "commercial" bee population of Tayside.

Surely all of those links point to amm stock of one type or another?

[Adam]

Surely all of those links point to amm stock of one type or another?

:) :)

The genes will be in there somewhere. Just a few back crosses and some morphometry and we'll all be pure again.....

I was stopped for speeding a couple of years' ago and was asked what racial origin I would like to be put down on the speeding ticket. I said that I refuse to state anything as it doesn't blinkin' matter at all, matter it did, as the Police Officer HAD to put something down in a little box. So I let him guess.

.. Sorry Gavin, slightly off track from brood and a half...

[Adam]

* I remember from schoolboy history that James VI of Scotland became James 1 of England in 1603 when Elizabeth died, so we are ALL Scottish!

Adam - no, no, no. Don't start that! Go back a bit and you then get Henry VII (English), Margaret (Danish), you hit the Tudor line (Welsh) then back to the French in time and so it goes. We're even more mixed up than the "commercial" bee population of Tayside.[/QUOTE]

You forgot Catherine of Aragon (Spain) who married Henry VIII's brother first.

[Mellifera Crofter]

... someone that had an almost empty brood box (might have been a 14 x12) with a super of stores underneath. ... the super and ran out of food and couldn't bridge the gap to the fondant above. ...

Thanks for the warning, Adam. So, either follow DR's advice and move the super back up a bit later if there's still stores in it (maybe when I remove the Varroa strips), or do as Grizzly does (if I understood you right, G) and leave well alone and let the bees sort themselves out - but definitely beware of leaving them stranded in a full super far away from the heat of the top of the hive, and access to candy.
Kitta (an alien Scot)

[GRIZZLY]

Kitta, feed like mad but make sure there is NO q excluder between the boxes.