My single brood chambers with 9 frames, the brood often extends from  
end bar to end bar and almost from top bar to bottom bar, leaving a  
narrow honey band of deeper cells(giving proper beespace) across the  
top and in the corners. 

I worked for a large scale package and queen producer in Northern California. He and his colleagues all ran single brood nests and nine frames. Many commercial beekeepers in NYS where I live now, do the same. 

The key to maximizing brood production has less to do with the type or number of frames than the age of the queen. The California beekeeper requeened all the colonies in the spring, as soon as he had mated queens available. 

These colonies were run for bee production (packages) and produced probably four times as many bees as colonies that are simply managed for honey production. Most beekeepers have no idea of the potential of honey bee colonies to produce bees, when managed correctly.

PLB

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html