For Ellen in Michigan,

I have 17 hives and 16 of them have 3 deeps on them plus about 3
shallow supers right now.

I had 10 surviving overwintered hives this spring, put in new queens in all
but one, and also hived six 9-pound packages. I fed all hives continual
syrup until
the end of May and gave them lots of pollen substitute patties until early
June as well as doing the usual medications as early as possible.  By early
May, I had put a 3rd deep filled mostly with drawn comb onto 16 of the
hives. The 17th hive is a 4-pound Yugoslavian Carniolan hive that seems
exceptionally slow in growth.

Each of the 3 deeps has a 1-inch auger hole in the top right of the front
face and bottom left of the back face--for ventilation ostensibly but also
for entry.  The hives are all very strong and are able to guard all the
extra entrances quite effectively, as far as I can tell.  I found that most
of the queens are laying well in all three deep brood chambers, 6-7 frames
of brood in each; the side frames in the deeps were filled quickly with
pollen and nectar.  One hive, however, has filled the entire 3rd deep with
nectar which is now capped and ready for extraction while the queen seems
content with 2 deeps.  I had to put a queen excluder on one very strong hive
last week as the queen laid in the first super above the 3rd deep, but she
is the only one to stray upward so far.  Most of the other hives now have a
strong honey bridge across the top--which I have to move when I rotate the
boxes.

Best of all, even though 16 of these hives are very strong, I have had no
swarms.  I did a number of box rotations during May and June, keeping track
of congestion.  The bees seem to really like the easy access through the
uppermost deep's auger holes to the top supers.  Last year, with 12 hives,
all in 2 deeps, I had 3 swarms.  I don't know if it is the 3 deep setup or
the auger holes for quick entry/exit or just pure luck--but this is the best
year I have ever had.  Biggest disadvantage of 3 deeps--heavy, heavy, heavy
right now.  Rotation of the brood boxes is very difficult from mid-July
onward. And the height of the 3 deeps plus 3-4 supers is daunting to deal
with as well as heavy lifting.

This is north of Seattle, on Puget Sound.  The wild blackberry honey flow is
the main source of nectar, from early June through early August.  I will
start extracting at the very end of July.  So, next year, I will again use 3
deeps as brood chambers as it has worked so well this year.

Mary Ann in western Washington