On Thursday, December 4, 2003, at 09:01  AM, Gordon Scott wrote :

>  Their behaviour in these circumstances is,
> generally, to store the honey in the brood nest, however we as
> beekeepers want it in the supers. In the UK most of us use Queen
> excluders to keep brood nest and crop apart.
>
Hi all,

This year I converted my colonies to single brood chambers.  No
problems with swarming nor honey in the brood chamber plugging it up
for the queen.  All the honey was stored above the queen excluder.  The
brood nest was amazing, wall to wall and top to bottom with brood at
all stages.  My first concern was that the queen would run out of room.
The fellow that convinced me to try it did a calculation for me.  With
5.2 mm cell size there would be more than 3600 cells per frame side, or
64800 in 9 frames.  At 2000 eggs per day it would take the queen 32
days to lay every cell, but 2000 bees emerge on the 21st
day.  Taking this into consideration, why 5 deeps for brood rearing in
heather honey production?  I am a small beekeeper(4 colonies this year)
producing 980 lbs of liquid and comb honey combined, with the best
colony at 350 lbs and the lowest 200 lbs.  Does anyone have comments on
single brood chambers(pro or con)?

Bob Darrell
Caledon Ontario
Canada
44N80W

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