On 1/06/2014 4:18 AM, randy oliver wrote:


> In any case, if one can prevent swarming, it seems that a single deep 
> Lang is enough (again, Aussie beeks please weigh in), provided that 
> the colony has empty drawn comb immediately above the excluder. But 
> wintering is another matter, dependent upon winter needs for energy 
> from honey, and what you want the colony to look like in early spring 
> (as for almond pollination).

A single brood box with an excluder is almost universal here in Aus.  
Either 8 or 9 frames.  Nine in a ten frame Langstroth, for probably 
historical reasons to do with petrol and kerosine cases, our tens are a 
little narrower than I believe yours are, or perhaps our rulers are 
corrupted.

Our experience is that the bees are reluctant to work through the 
excluder if given more than the single box.  In spring it is quite 
normal for a queen to lay wood to wood or close to it.  In other words 
brood filling each of the nine frames.  Normal swarm control includes 
the 'empty' super above the excluder.  In much of Australia there is the 
prospect of some winter honey in the beekeepers migration range, 
sometimes even a major flow, so we do not have the same problem as in 
the norther hemisphere of winter stores. Nowadays with the mechanical 
loading of hives it is normal to leave roughly a super of honey on at 
all times, unless one is certain of the flow.  Something that is easy to 
get wrong, many flows can be extremely fickle, varying between sites a 
short distance apart.

Geoff Manning

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