I can now make some observations concerning single vs. double brood
chambers in areas with lots of pollen during Jan-March. First, I needed
honey quick, and the single boxes did that for me great. They also used up
all the space, presumably cleaning out diseased cells as Allen mentioned.
Except for a small amount of chalk brood, the only serious problem was
something that looks like EFB in a hive without a queen excluder.

But the space in the single brood boxes really doesn't enough, what with
drone cells being so much bigger than worker cells, etc... The bees were
even filling up the insides of the end frames with brood. I suppose that
theoretically with perfect frames it might be enough, but not here with me.

Scott Jefferies, who teaches beekeeping at the local Uni, and posts here
as well came out with three guys from the Santa Maria beekeeping club last
week, and we went through 3 of my apiaries. We noticed that while there
was often plenty of honey in the second or third honey super, the first on
the strong hives was light, packed with pollen. Scott suggested that the
bees were really trying to get the queen up there, and so yesterday I
started adding a second brood chamber. I also started going through the
brood chambers checking for swarm cells, as I spent quite a bit of money
on queens this December, and I found that just over half had swarm cells.

PS, those Kona line queens are egg laying machines.

At this point I should say that I checked one of my hives which was double
brood box, and it had swarm cells too, but perhaps I can get some trends
this weekend. It could be just the amount of pollen is causing them to
want to swarm, but there isn't any doubt that single brood boxes in this
area have to be carefully monitored to prevent the bees being stressed. On
the positive side, the bees look very healthy, and that extra 50 pounds of
honey came in really handy.

Regards to the list
Tim Vaughan

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