Interesting discussions. I first got interested in using triples when I had
a few outyards and I didn't want to have to deal with feeding. The multiple
brood chambers could hold a nice reserve of honey, year to year. But of
late I am encountering a potential drawback to overwintering in triples.
Provisioning them as C. L. Farrar, F.E. Moeller and others recommended
leaves the colonies going nice and heavy into winter, with very large (90
lbs.?) sealed-honey and pollen reserves. However, if some colonies die
during the winter, for whatever reason, you can end up with about two
deeps' worth of old honey, in brood combs, which has either granulated or
fermented. This can be a pain to deal with in the spring. Sure, you can
restock, but it might be quite a while until all those combs get emptied so
they are of use for brood rearing again.
Some colonies such as Russians and Carniolans typically won't need such
large reserves for wintering. On the other hand, in some years I have seen
Italian types keep breeding well into the fall such that they burn up much
of the honey in the top (3rd) deep and replace it with brood before the
cold weather sets in. So it can be hard to say what the optimum amount of
stores, or optimum size of hive, is. Of course, too, the food can be there,
and if the placement isn't just right, they can still starve.
This year, for us, some clusters didn't come close to burning through the
volume of provisions they were left with. I am having to remove some full
combs of honey, much of it granulated solid, to free up space for egg
laying. But at least they didn't starve.
Being an enthusiastic backyard hobbyist, I have the luxury of extracting
more of the honey and leaving them with somewhat less, in the fall, since I
can keep an eye on them and easily feed in spring if it becomes necessary.
This can help do away with problematic excesses of granulated or spoiled
stores, should the colonies succumb during winter. Plus I can harvest more
honey to pack. $$ Sugar is cheap.
It has become more difficult to predict overwintering success with
confidence, with all the added stresses on the colonies in recent years. I
have seen so many fine December clusters (mine and others') dwindle down to
pathetic handfuls of bees by March. So as yet, it's not obvious what the
ideal balance is between overharvesting and leaving "too much" honey.
(Anyone, please chime in here.) Perhaps overwintering in two deeps, and
leaving a full medium extracting super on top at the end of the season,
like Mike Palmer has mentioned might be the very best compromise, at least
in parts of the Northeast. Then they have a full medium of honey above
their heads, plus whatever they can pack away in the upper deep from the
fall sources. And they still have lots of room for pollen storage below.
An unlimited brood nest (3 x deep), during buildup, anyway, is great, from
what I've seen. If your stock is any good, it is conducive to building
wonderful, booming colonies. Meanwhile, the extra large brood nest delays
the onset of swarm preps. It certainly doesn't prevent swarming on its own,
but the swarming doesn't occur so soon, and that gives you more time to
manage things, IME. And if you don't do that, you might get to see some
really cool big swarms. For overwintering, at least in some situations,
triples loaded heavily with stores might be considered overkill.
I once asked Roger Morse's opinion on three deep brood nests, back in the
80s when I was reading a lot of Farrar's old stuff. Dr. Morse wasn't so
enthusiastic,; he considered triples "exorbitant" and not the best use of
available equipment.
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