Single Brood Or Double Brood In Beehive

Single Brood Or Double Brood In Beehive that is the question!

Now I have been keeping bees since 2010 and I have tried double brood, single brood and brood and a half over the years.
This is one of those beekeeping topics that beekeepers vary massively on. Some beekeepers prefer single brood chambers others prefer the brood and a half and the rest go with double brood boxes.

Now for me living in Wales in the UK I keep everything as single brood box with all my hives. Commercial or National hive they get a single brood box.
Personally I found very little incentive to run bees on more than a single brood box in this part of the world. We don't get massive crops and the bees don't build up into monster hives....well some of them do!
That said I found that I get the same amount of honey from single brood box hives as I did with double. I keep bees for honey so why have the extra work of inspecting two boxes when you can get away with one!

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[DiverPeg]

Wow! Lots of supers in this apiary. This is the first year I will be able to put supers on…I have about three per hive for both hives.

[lenturtle]

In canada we run triples or doubles thru -40 winters in groups of 4 wrapped in r 20 insulation and average over 90 kg per hive

[fabianweber]

For me in Colorado US, it's about leaving the bees enough feed for the winter. Running 2 deep langstroth leaves more margin for seasonality. In a warm winter and spring they will need a full deep of honey. In the cold ones a single box will be space constrained and won't build up as fast. I do it both ways and don't like to feed so those single boxes need to be packed going into winter.
Closing comment to stir the pot o you, Mean bees, that's how you make more honey!

[bzhoneyalanb]

Brilliant video. I run single up in scotland I find they find it easier to manage the cluster through winter and less isolation starvation. As long as they are super heavy going into winter.

[mickhoyle]

You make a very good point, as everywhere is different, here in north Surrey I'm moving over from double broods to single 14x12 broods. However, this year the bees are beating me as I'm having trouble condensing them down into the broods as there are way too many bees for this time of year. One thing I have found is that everything 14x12 is pricey, and if I can't get some cheaper stuff in the Winter sales I may have to curtail my 14x12 plans.

[_J.F_]

I used to always overwinter my bees in single brood chambers and I'm not far away in Ceredigion so similar weather. I am not a commercial beekeeper though and with age I am getting lazy too, so now I tend to overwinter the bees in a brood and a super. This way I can assure that they have enough resources regardless of what kind of winter we get, and that is really the problem I feel we are facing nowadays. We never now if the winter will be long and hard, or often with an early warm-up followed by prolonged frost in March, or if it will be a mild winter with hardly any frost. I find that I can feed the bees depending on what Ivy flow we get just about now, and when that is over I really don't have to do anything until spring aside from the occasional hefting in January and February. I think it might be worth removing the supers during the Varroa treatment as to not contaminate them but again, not being a commercial beekeeper it is not a big job to do.

[MinnesotaBeekeeper]

Funny thing is single brood method was originally done to save on equipment.

[paulrobbo]

I will be testing single brood this year. North Essex.

Thank you Sir 🫡

[dcsblessedbees]

First off congratulations on a good season for your bees and you.🤠👍

Doesn't it depend a lot of where ya live and what you are trying to accomplish. (generally) From a lot of the keepers videos I've watched over this first season, singles seem better for honey, while doubles seem better for growing early Spring splits?
First lessons I learnt in my new beekeeping life was 1.No-absolutes, it's ALL give and take, 2.Bees DON"T read the books(crazy bees), 3.Beekeeping is ALWAYS personal to the keeper, the bee, the location, 4.Happy Family, Happy Bees, Happy Keeper(Maybe the best).👍 Ty for the great info, Blessed Days...

[LIL-RED-BIRD]

Take a look at Canadian bee keepers blog.
He starts in a single broods them up to double deeps then shakes them down into a single for production an then over winters inside a shed.
He’s located in Manitoba Canada.

[ceresuziel]

@Gwenyn Gruffydd Awesome content! Can I ask you what is the brand of the suit and veil you are wearing in this video??? Thank you in advance!

[mywaychannel]

i had bees in south africa and now i have some hives here in Poland - always singles worked best for me :-)

[carlsledge]

2 guestions, 1 How does the national brood compare to the standard Langstroth in relation to volume and about of bees it can hold? 2 Since your bees are mainly British blacks, do the more aggressive hives tend to make more honey and docile ones? I ask because I have a wild swarm I caught March 28th this year, 1/2 the bees are shiny black with only fuzz on their thorax and head and the other 1/2 are a yellowish grey and full fuzzy, they are aggressive and you have to suit up fully to work them, but they made close to 200 pounds of surplus honey this year, BTW I'm in middle Georgia at 425 feet elevation and we never get snow and my bees get to fly at least 1/3 of the time every month of the year, we had only 6 days below freezing for the year. I'm in the peach and cotton belt of my state so my bees never see a heavy dearth until frost kills the goldenrod which is usually late October.

[aaronparis]

I use double poly but I have 5 months of cold shitty weather but you can do singles I do what ever the size of my clusters in the fall

[retepcooper]

Excellent opportunity to give viewers a quick lesson in counting in Welsh there; variety if nothing else. I'm not from Wales, nor a Welsh speaker - just a learner - but a few quick bits of Cymraeg can't hurt. Get your kids to teach us. Diolch from Aberystwyth.

[danmarcroberts]

I wonder if - to your point - this is about a combination of local weather conditions and available forage? Down here in Kent, my double-brood hive produced two supers more than my single-brood hives. It seems that numbers matter. The upper brood chamber contained frames of honey but also brood. As an added advantage, that hive didn't swarm, I'm assuming in part because it had plenty of space to expand in spring. If you have forage, it seems to be a matter of the length of the season and in Kent that will be longer than the west of the UK.

[dreww]

Good video. I ran double brood this year but think I'll try single brood next year 👍

[steveselvage]

I've been trying different set ups this year and have found the same as you, I will go back to single brood next year, probably commercial brood boxes to use with my existing national shallows.
I am going to condense my doubles and brood and half to singles today.
Should I leave the honey in the top box on the hives for winter feed or will it be too big a space for overwintering the bees?

[killianmurphy]

Most of mine are on double nationals and this year I’ve tried the commercial and Langstroth hives.
My main problem is the National is to small, the double is to big. The brood and a half is to troublesome.
The commercial is to expensive so it’s down to the Langstroth hive for me.

[glynisreynolds]

You are going to have to give up sleep to extract all that honey 🤣🤣 Good problem to have though 👍 So glad your girls have rewarded you for all your hard work 😃🇬🇧