> Managed a yard in singles this past year.  Produced more than
> doubles, mostly because of the extra box of honey extracted rather
> than left for winter.

That is our experience, too.  As long as sugar is far cheaper than honey,
this practice makes sense.

> ...the brood present was the SAME between the doubles and the
> singles.  The difference was that the doubles had its brood between
> both chambers with lots of pollen and honey available.  The singles
> used most of the chamber for brood rearing, and the rest for pollen
> stores.

We found the brood area to be comparable, too.  As you note, timing for
singles is much more critical than when running doubles, and the sugar must
be fed early enough to allow the bees to process and store it properly.

Single brood chambers have good points and bad points.  For one thing,
disease control is much easier, since 1.) there is only one box to inspect,
2.) the bees clean problem cells promptly and don't just move over a few
frames, ignoring diseased cells as they often do in doubles, 3.) under many
situations, you get more honey, and 4.) That honey is much easier to remove.

If you have good brood comb, properly spaced, most queens will have more
than enough room in a single, but if you use very large cell foundation
(5.7mm), have poor combs, and/or space wider than 1-3/8" and/or also have
some bowed combs, singles may not work well.  Moreover, using single brood
chambers, supering techniques may be a bit more subtle than where double
broods are used, or where unrestricted brood is permitted.

Bees store best within hive regions where the colony naturally maintains
continuous warmth, and where individuals can thus comfortably maintain
continuous presence during the flow.  Continuous warmth is always maintained
near where brood is being raised, and, in climactic regions where weather
gets cool periodically during the flow season, the bees often retreat from
at least some of the supers to the brood area, particularly if 1.) the
weather cools  2.) the hive is too well ventilated, 3.) there is no flow
activity to stimulate the bees to generate heat, and 4.) the hive is not at
full strength.  They can be slow to return to their former ouposts in
distant supers, and may stay closer to the brood area after a cold snap,
unless stimulated by hot weather and a strong flow.  People often comment
that bees do not cap well early in the season.  A few such retreats, or a
hint from the weather that they may have to do so, and they are stimulated
to cap.

Since, in singles, the brood is concentrated in the very bottom box, the
bees may abandon the supers more often and for longer than in the case where
double brood chambers are used, or where the queen is allowed the run of the
whole hive.  This may affect their storing in a season or region with
intermittent flows, but will have little effect in a heavy flow condition.
Adjusting ventilation and number of supers may also compensate for this
factor.  In comb honey production in the North, heat conservation is a key
management trick, and we always ran single broods with as few supers as we
could, and still contain all the bees.

(The above paragraphs explain about half the debate over whether queen
excluders are honey excluders, and why it is never resolved.  There are too
many interracting factors, and people like to oversimplify.)

> I was very aware of colony food stores in my singles when I
> pulled off my last supers,made sure to have the feed there right away.

Very wise; that is where many of us fall down.  When we remove the supers,
we will also be removing most of the feed on the hive, and a full box of
brood uses lots of feed.  A day or two of poor flying weather and/or a
dearth, arriving right after pulling the seconds, can kill or severely
damage single hives unless a second with feed is placed on at the time of
pulling, or unless a feeder is placed on the hive at that time -- or both.

> Besides the fact that I winter my doubles outside, I feel that
> managing
> my hives in doubles was easier and more forgiving that managing in
> singles.

That's what we concluded, but singles can return up to $50 more per hive,
net profit, at current prices.  That's worth a little extra work IMO.  In
cases where brood boxes are in short supply, this can mean being able to run
more hives, too.  With package bees the management is dead simple, too.
Like shooting fish in a barrel.

We wintered our singles outside, and found the same success rate as doubles,
but maybe that was because we converted the singles to doubles and fed in
early September, as soon as the flows finished.  Some in our Northern
climate winter singles outside with good success, but we never had success
with them on the ground.  When we raised the cluster up, by making the hives
into doubles, we had no more problems.  That also reduced our spring work
and fears of spring starvation.

allen
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/

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