We have converted to all meds. Benefits: 1)Drastically cuts labor time in making splits--no frame handling, no extra boxes and equip. hauled to the field to make splits. 2)Brood boxes become honey supers--same logic used in an all-deep system. 3)Fume board moves bees out of honey supers faster than a deep--take one box at a time and fume board is always closer to the bees. 4)Boxes are lighter and easier to handle. 5)Less care needed in spacing as frames are not as long and therefore do not have as much variability of space at bottom of box. Negatives: Cost is greater going in. But cost benefit ratio is attractive. A little labor saved buys a lot of equipment. System: We use a two med. brood nest for honey production with an excluder above. When the summer honey is pulled we raise the excluder above the third box of freshly extracted comb giving the queen plenty of open area to lay in the fall. In March we make three splits out of each hive using a "yard-trashing" method and queen cells. When the splits attains two box stregth the excluder goes on and the hive is ready for honey production. Clint Walker III Small Commercial Bees, Queens, Honey Operation Central and South Texas [log in to unmask]