>        Having converted, what is your winter configuration,
>2 or 3 mediums? Also what changes if any have you made to spring
>super manipulations? Also for making splits?
>
>        Just curious. Thanks,
>
>                Jim
 
Hi:
        I'm not Bill, and I'm not converted to mediums, but I thought I'd
jump in on this thread.  I used to use all deeps for many of the reason's
Allen mentioned.  Then one day Charles Mraz (his address is another current
thread) visited PEI beekeepers, oh about 12 years ago (he gave a rather
impressive apitherapy demonstartion).  He was already OLD then.  He said to
me its ok to use all deeps when you are young but it is just not possible
when you are my age.  Since I'm 46 now and don't want to milk cows for the
rest of my life and since it looks like the Canada Pension Plan will be
bankrupt by the time I can't sling deeps around anymore I have started
mixing in quite a few mediums.
 
        By the way, I once bought the bees and equipment (about 15 hives)
from an old fellow in New Brunswick.  He was 92.  His family kind of asked
me to do it.  They were tired of helping him move supers.  I saw his
daughter in law a couple of years later and she told me he went back into
the bees!  I thought "good for you, mate" as I could see when I took the
equipment that he was not relishing the thought of losing his little
friends.  But I bet he switched to mediums.
 
        What size supers do you use Sid Pullinger?  You must be 115 or so
aren't you, with all your tales of beekeeping early in the century  :)
(Keep them coming, I really enjoy your posts a lot).
 
        Anyway, back to the thread.  I overwinter in all different sizes and
combinations of boxes.  (I'm 46 degrees north on an island in the Gulf of
St. Laurence).  I keep the hives in lines of five on stands of two eight
foot 2 X 4 on edge and then on blocks.  Since I push the hives together to
get the sides in contact for the winter I try to keep the same height of
hive on one stand.  But some have singles, some doubles (this is the most
common) some one deep one medium (this is very common), some are two deeps
and one medium, and a few are three deeps.  Now this would be a nightmare
for a big commercial outfit like Allen's, but for someone who does all the
management himself and doesn't have to direct workers it is possible and has
some advantages.  All the configurations seem to winter quite well if they
have stores, good queen, young bees.  I can choose the size when I am taking
off honey and evaluating the condition of the brood chamber (I don't use
queen excluders that much except for finding queens).
 
        The singles are often overwintered over a strong hive.(Even a single
medium can survive the winter here like that).   They generally survive the
winter and do good the next year but they are not always of sufficient
strength in late spring to rent out for blueberry pollination.
 
        One deep and one medium seems to give good results and a rentable
colony.
 
        Two deeps is much the same with the occasional dividable colony.
 
        Two deeps and one medium has given me some lovely spring colonies
that I can often divide.  I leave one deep with the field bees and move off
one and a medium.  It is possible to arrange the frames of brood compactly
with this arrangement so that the bees remaining can heat them.  (Sometimes
I put them over another colony).
 
        Three deeps is something I am moving away from.  I find the pollen
in the bottom box sometimes goes mouldy.  Besides the price of honey, I must
admit, has made this rather an expensive proposition.  And our fall honey
granulates quickly and so sugar syrup may actually equivalent value as
winter feed.  But I will note that this is how old Mr. Mraz wintered his 800
colonies (I think his son helped).  He said he tried to avoid lifting the
deeps.  He used to tip the colony over (he probably used a hand cart) and
divide the supers while it was on its "back".  He did most of his decision
making on splitting just from looking up into the divided boxes.  Then he
might move a few boxes and tip the remaining ones back up.  He made "blind"
splits and let the bees raise emergency queen cells.  I thought, well if you
can keep that many colonies at your age, and do all your apitherapy stuff
besides, there must be much to be said for your system. I do not recall
whether he used mediums in the brood chamber but he certainly supered with them.
 
Regards Stan