>"House your bees in small hives.   Consider using just one deep hive body
for a broodnest and one medium-depth super over a queen excluder for
honey.  You won't harvest as much honey, but you will likely have reduced
disease and pest problems, particularly Varroa.

No consideration for the race of bee?

We would lose crop if we did not keep our A.m.m. in a single UK National brood box.  Our average crop over 38 years is around 70lb based on previous autumn count - i.e. colonies fed down for winter.  Best crop ever from a single BB was 432lbs.  Average winter feed is 6.25 kg bakers' fondant.

Varroa levels are very low and we are close to becoming treatment free. I am happy!

This past winter we had zero winter losses for over 100 colonies; I put this down to weather  - good end to 2018 and then a relatively mild winter with some good fine periods early in the year.  (Now of course it is all going pear-shaped - drought and cold weather which has now turned to wet and cold weather, with night-time temperatures around freezing and a daily max of around 12ºC - but the forecasters promise better things to comes from Sunday onwards...)

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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