Bob Farrington asks:
"So my question is, why does everybody, except these five local =
beekeepers, have two brood boxes before supering ?  Is it to help the =
bee colony through the winter?  More bees, more honey? In fact does =
everybody have two brood boxes before supering? "

Here are a couple of more thoughts on the subject of one versus two brood
boxes:  First, all of my hives this year have only one deep brood box.
All of the hives of my friend, president of our bee society have 2 brood boxes.
He gets more honey than I do.

I asked a couple of the more experienced beekeepers around here and one of them
said, as you suggest, that you have to feed them less during the winter.  The
other said that if you have two boxes, you'll have a higher population of bees
in the Spring and they will make more honey.  I also recall some people saying
that single brood boxes often work better for comb honey production while
extracted honey production is best with two brood boxes.  Another thought is
that having two deep brood chambers makes it easier to make splits and add a
new queen to the queenless half.  It's harder to make splits if you only have
single deeps.  There are lots of things to think about and lots of decisions to
make.  Experience is also a wonderful teacher, and as we have been reminded,
books are great as well as getting opinions from the voices of experience.
My wishes for enjoyable and productive beekeeping to all.  It's been a great
year for honey here in central Texas.  This is the best year for regular rains
and good bee forage here in my area that I've ever seen since moving here 17
years ago.

Layne Westover
College Station, Brazos County, Texas, U.S.A.  (the weather's been cooler than
normal too.  It's still in the low 90's F and hasn't broken 100 F yet this year)