Single brood, double brood, and the super you left on

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Weigh the stores first, and choose the boxes after

Every September the same question comes round. Take the super off, drop to one brood box, or leave it alone. The configuration is the last decision, not the first.

Weigh what the colony has. Work out the gap. Then pick the arrangement that holds what it needs without asking it to heat space it cannot cover.

Two published figures make that possible. A British Standard brood frame full of honey holds about 2.3 kg, a super frame about 1.2 kg, and a full super at least 12 kg. 12 Larger frames hold more: a Commercial or Langstroth brood frame can take up to 3 kg. 2

So counting frames is weighing. Lift each one, judge how much of it is capped stores, and count in halves. Six frames that are two thirds full is four full frames, near enough, and near enough is what this job needs.

Hefting is the quick version. The NBU asks you to count frames first and learn what the different levels feel like, then heft once you have the practice. 2 Heft one side and then the other, because stores sit unevenly. 2 Hives are heavier than people expect, so lift properly and ask for help. 2

The number, and where both halves of it come from

You will see it said that the NBU publishes two different targets. It does not. One document gives both figures, and they do not disagree.

Best practice guideline 7a puts the weight of stores a colony needs to get through the winter at 18 to 22 kg, or 39.6 to 48.4 lb. Larger colonies headed by prolific queens may need more. 1

The same document, in its own best practice recommendations, says not to take too much honey off in autumn and to feed syrup to make the balance up to about 20 kg. 1 Fact sheet 19 gives approximately 20 kg as well. 2

So 20 kg is the working target and 18 to 22 kg is the honest spread around it. Aim at 20. A colony below the bottom of that range needs feeding, and the winter feeding guide has the syrup quantities.

Single brood, and why it usually needs feeding

An eleven frame brood box cannot hold the stores and the colony at once. Eleven full frames would be about 25 kg, but the bees need somewhere to be, and in September the queen is still laying.

A single brood colony in good order carries five or six frames of stores at the flanks. At 2.3 kg a frame that is 11.5 to 13.8 kg. 12 Against a 20 kg target the gap is six to eight and a half kilograms.

That is not a fault in the arrangement. It is the arrangement working as designed, with the beekeeper supplying the difference.

Set it up so the stores finish where the bees will be. Brood in the middle, sealed stores arching over it, more at the flanks, and no empty frame for the cluster to cross in January. The layout is ours rather than published, but isolation starvation is the thing it is aimed at. 12

The super you left on

Start with whether it is worth anything at all. A super holding three frames of honey and seven dry ones is not a larder. It is a box of cold air sitting over the cluster.

Our rule is that a super only counts as stores if it is at least two thirds capped. That threshold is ours, not anybody’s guidance. Anything under it comes off, gets cleared and goes into store for the winter.

Even a full one normally comes off. That is the order the rest of this library works in, and the last look before winter assumes the supers have already gone. Take the crop, then feed the gap.

If you would rather the bees kept that honey, move the honey instead of leaving the box. Bruise the cappings and set the super under the brood box, and they will carry it up. Early September, while it is still warm enough for them to bother. That method is house practice.

Some beekeepers do overwinter on a super, and it can work. If you go that way, three things are not optional.

• The queen excluder comes out. This is the one that kills colonies, and it has its own section below. 2
• No varroa treatment while the super is there. The NBU is flat about it: varroacides cannot be applied while honey supers are on the colony. 2 The authorised oxalic acid literature says the same twice, once as a precaution for use and once under withdrawal periods. 3 That is a reason to settle the boxes now rather than in December, because the broodless window arrives with the super still in the way.
• Feed syrup and it stops being honey. Syrup goes into the comb the bees are working on, so what ends up in that super cannot be sold as honey. The feeding guide says the same, and the selling guide covers what the label may claim.

Work the arithmetic on the worst super our own rule allows. Two thirds of at least 12 kg is about 8 kg. Five full brood frames underneath is 11.5 kg. 12 That is 19.5 kg, just under the target and still inside the published range. A fuller super buys margin. A thinner one buys none.

The NBU gives its own version of that sum: a full super and three brood frames of honey should be sufficient on its own. 2

The queen excluder comes out

Whatever boxes you finish with, super or no super, this one applies. It is the most consequential thing on the page.

Take the excluder out before winter. The NBU gives the reason in one sentence: a winter cluster goes up through the excluder in the search for food stores, leaving the queen behind to perish from the cold and starvation. 2

The workers fit through the slots. The queen does not. So the colony follows the stores upwards and she is left below on her own.

It is a thirty second job with the hive tool already in your hand. The last look before winter carries it as a numbered step, and so does the feeder guide. Leaving it in is a well known way to lose a colony that was otherwise going to be fine.

Double brood, and when to come down to one

A double brood colony has room for the stores without help. Eight full frames in the upper box is 18.4 kg on its own, and three more below takes it past 25 kg. 12

The question is whether to winter on two boxes or one, and there is published guidance on it. Smaller colonies usually kept on a double brood box may need reducing to a single, so the bees can control the temperature more effectively. Too much empty space relative to the size of the cluster and they struggle to keep it warm. 2

The colony in between has a published answer too. Use dummy boards, or something similar, to moderate the volume inside the hive so it reflects the size of the colony. 2 That is the option most people forget, and it costs one board.

What is not published is exactly where the line sits. We reduce when a colony will not cover both boxes going into winter and leave two when it will. That part is judgement, and it is ours.

If you are reducing, do it in September while it is warm enough to sort frames. Move the stores up around the brood, take out the empties, and check the queen is in the box you are keeping before the other one comes off. That check is the step people skip and regret.

Brood and a half is judged the same way, on frame counts rather than on what the box is called. Treat the shallow as part of the brood nest. The job is to consolidate the stores so the cluster is never asked to cross a cold empty frame.

Turning a shortfall into sugar, and the date it has to be done by

Once you know the gap, the conversion is short. Bees dry syrup down to about the moisture of honey before they cap it, so a kilo of sugar does not become a kilo of stores.

Our working figure across these guides is that 1 kg of sugar ends up as roughly 1.2 kg of stores. It is our arithmetic on the NBU quantities rather than a published number, so treat it as a guide. Making sugar syrup has the mixing.

• 6 kg short is about 5 kg of sugar
• 8.5 kg short is about 7 kg of sugar
• 10 kg short is about 8 kg of sugar

Feed it as thick syrup while the bees can still process it. September is a good month in many parts of the UK, and later feeding is possible in some areas depending on the weather. 1

There is an outer limit, and most summaries leave it out. Depending on locality, weather and colony size, bees may be unable to process syrup and store it properly beyond mid-October. 2 If there is not enough honey stored on the combs by the end of October, feed fondant instead. 2

So syrup has a deadline and fondant is the fallback. Emergency feeding covers what to do once it is too cold for syrup.

Further north, and a longer winter

Neither NBU document gives a regional figure. Guideline 7a leans the other way and allows for later feeding in some areas. 1 So anything you read about the north needing an earlier date is somebody’s practice rather than national guidance.

One practice is worth having, because it is written down. Ian Craig, writing for the Scottish Beekeepers’ Association from Mid-Renfrewshire, tries to have every colony fed by mid September, and tops the stores up in the last week of the month. 4

His target is higher than the NBU’s. He makes any shortfall up to about 25 kg. 4

He also winters on sixteen British Standard combs, two brood chambers of eight frames each flanked by dummy frames. His reasoning is that an eleven comb single brood chamber has no room for autumn laying, winter stores and the bees all at once. 4 He still advises beginners to stay on a single box until they are confident handling bees. 4

He is explicit that he writes about his own conditions and that readers elsewhere must make allowances. 4 Take it as one careful Scottish beekeeper’s method, which is what it is, and not as a rule for everywhere above a line on the map.

When the answer is uniting, not feeding

A small colony in September is a decision, not a project.

The NBU gives a threshold, and it is counted in frames rather than seams. A colony wants a minimum of five standard brood frames or equivalent, covered in bees, going into winter, and anything smaller should be combined with another colony. 2

There is a condition attached and it matters. Both colonies have to be disease free. 2 A colony that may be diseased should not be combined with another until remedial action has been taken, so find out why a colony is small before you unite it. 2

A queenless colony has a low chance of surviving and should be combined, or requeened if it is not too late in the season. 2 Two weak colonies going into winter is a good way to have none in March. Uniting over newspaper is the method, and the queenright check is what tells you which problem you have.

When the simple rule breaks down

• Nucleus colonies. A five frame nuc cannot hold 20 kg and is not asked to. Winter it in a nuc box with insulation and feed little and often, or unite it. That is our practice. Making up a nucleus covers the box.
• Late mated queens. A colony that only started laying in late August may still have brood when everything else is winding down. Feed it, and leave the box decision until the nest settles. Ours, not published.
• Ivy country. A colony can put real weight on in October, after you have done your sums. Ivy is the last important bee plant of the year in much of the country. 4 Check again before the last look rather than overfeeding in anticipation.
• Heather colonies coming home late. They arrive light and short of time. The NBU allows for winter preparation running later where there is a late flow from heather or Himalayan balsam. 2 One Scottish routine is to bring them home mid September, take the supers off, put them on sixteen combs, treat and feed. 4
• A very heavy hive with no brood. Weight is not health. Check there is a laying queen before you congratulate yourself on the stores. 2
• Bigger frames. Commercial and Langstroth brood frames hold up to 3 kg, so the same frame count is more stores. 2 Hive types explains which is which.

The short version

• Count the frames before you touch a box. Brood frame full of honey about 2.3 kg, super frame about 1.2 kg, full super at least 12 kg. 12
• Aim at about 20 kg, inside a requirement of 18 to 22 kg. Both figures are in the same document. 1 Fact sheet 19 gives approximately 20 kg too. 2
• Single brood almost always needs feeding, usually by six to eight and a half kilograms.
• Take the queen excluder out. A cluster follows the stores up through it and leaves the queen behind to die of cold and starvation. 2
• The super comes off in the ordinary way. Under two thirds capped it is a heat loss, and that threshold is ours.
• If you do keep a super on: excluder out, no varroa treatment while it is there, and syrup fed into it means the contents are not honey. 23
• Reduce a shrunken double brood colony to a single box, and use dummy boards for the one in between. 2
• Divide the shortfall by 1.2 to get the sugar. That conversion is ours, not published.
• Syrup by mid-October at the latest. Fondant if the combs are still light at the end of October. 2
• Under five brood frames covered in bees, unite rather than feed, and only where both colonies are disease free. 2