Allen Dick wrote:

>Pretty well every experienced beekeeper has had reason to extract a few
>brood frames from the top brood box at one time or another. 

I kept bees in Southern California for many years. We had no distinctions
such as "brood box" or "top box". We just had boxes, of one size (full-sized
deeps). The supers were frequently moved up and down the stack for a variety
of reasons. 

I didn't use queen excluders at all, so the brood nest might be two, three,
or even four stories at times. We tried not to restrict the queen in any
way. Mostly, I "top supered", but if a hive was honey-bound, I simply set
full supers aside and undersupered, and moved the honey to the top.  

I was always keen on getting the combs shuffled, as the dark brood combs are
desirable in the supers for several reasons: bees seem to be attracted to
the smell of old comb and will put honey in these ones first. Old combs are
tougher than new ones and hold up better in the extractor.

Of course, I realize that many people segregate the brood nest from the
supers. In this day of mite treatments, etc. this is probably a good idea.
However, I know several beekeepers in this area of NY State that run bees
essentially the way I described. 

The queen has free run of the hive and the bees can organize it how they
like. When you pull honey, you take whatever is there and if there is brood
mixed in, the best plan is to move it down and pull some honey frame up,
either before or during the harvest. 

If you harvest before the flow is over and reduce the hive to two or three
stories, they can sock in enough honey for winter. If you pull honey after
the flow is over, some of the stronger hives will end up a bit light weight,
since their brood areas are larger and the honey ends up in the supers.

The usual solution around here (upstate NY) is to come back and feed corn
syrup, but if you don't extract all the frames, you can return the supers of
honey to ones you left a bit short. (Disclaimer: just one approach among
many. Vary to suit your own needs.)

pb

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