Bo Darrell said:
>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.

Running a hive in a single brood box in spring and through the honey flow is
not uncommon. Running year around in a single box can be a problem as
without supers on the bees WILL plug the brood chamber if a unexpected flow
happens.

> All the honey was stored above the queen excluder.

And usually is IF you give the bees plenty of room to store surplus honey.
If not in the brood nest the honey goes.

 > The brood nest was amazing, wall to wall and top to bottom with brood at
all stages.

I have had two queen hives with around four deeps "wall to wall" brood.
Single queen with two deeps of wall to wall brood (but not an easy feat to
accomplish).

 > My first concern was that the queen would run out of room.

Not a problem if you do the math and start your hive/nuc with X amount of
frames of brood X amount of days before the main flow starts.

>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.

The problem with your calculations is that the bees will use a certain
amount of cells in the brood nest for bee bread. No two hives are the same
but usually a arch is around the top with brood in the center. There are a
few tricks to force the brood chamber full of brood only but they will only
work for awhile.

>Taking this into consideration, why 5 deeps for brood rearing in
heather honey production?

Murray confines the queen in a box or two then removes the excluder giving
the queen free rain of the five boxes which are also to store the honey in.
Murray does not winter in five deep boxes.
I believe I have got Murray's methods correct but I am sure he will correct
me if wrong.

Grandpa used to keep bees in four or five deeps and simply pull honey combs
from any one of the four or five boxes. I believe Dee Lusby still uses
Grandpa's methods but if one uses chemicals of any kind Grandpa's methods
would not work today

>  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.

Wow ! That's a 245 lb. average from four hives in  single brood chambers.
Well done!

However undocumented  I consider large honey crops like I do "big fish
stories" but congradulations anyway!

Bob Harrison

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::