A beekeeper in North Wales places a large brood box beneath an overwintered hive to give bees more space without separating them from the feeder. Within three weeks, the colony expanded downward into the new box, disproving the myth that bees only move up. This setup preserves heat, keeps brood and feeder close, and reduces swarming risk.
Today I'm going to show you why underbrooding your beehive in the spring is a really good way to stop your bees from swarming. So this colony here overwintered very well in North Wales, and it overwintered on this Abelo green box here. I came in about 3 or 4 weeks ago, did some hefting, looked inside the top of the box, and the box was completely full to the brim with bees. It's a super calm German Buckfast line, and they were running out of space a little bit. Now, that time of the year, February or March, you've not got that many options when it comes to giving the bees additional space. When the brood box is full, the textbooks say you should add supers, but doing that in February gives you lots and lots of problems. It detaches the brood nest from where the feeder is, and you wouldn't want to feed anyway and contaminate all of your supers. So your options are limited, and generally the advice is to sit on your hands and just wait and try and time it perfectly. And that is the art of beekeeping. That's the difficult part of beekeeping. But this system here is a really good system that gives you an advantage in spring when it comes to adding Without taking anything away from the colony in terms of warmth and heat and access to their food. So that's exactly what I did with this colony here. This Abello box was my overwintered colony, and instead of adding space above, I just added this huge 14 by 12 box below. Now people will tell you that this doesn't work. People will tell you that bees only move upwards, so if you give them space below, they won't do anything with it. I'm going to completely bust that myth later on in this video, but let's talk about some of the benefits of this configuration for the bees. Now even if they don't want any of this space, you give them a slight buffer to expand and contract into. But what you're not doing by placing the brood box, the additional one underneath, is you're not separating the bees here from the feeder above them. If you had space above the bees, you're effectively separating the bees and the queen and the brood nest from the feeder. And then if it drops down and gets really cold overnight, then the bees can't access the feed and maybe they will die. Not to mention that on those cold nights, all of the warmth from your brood nest is just gonna rise up into that empty void. And if the bees didn't need that space, then all you've done is just set your colony back anyway. So this configuration here works very, very well. It keeps the bees in close contact with the feeder. It means that they're not losing any heat upwards 'cause you've got a nice insulated roof in close contact. And all of the space that you're adding is down below. Now I've talked to so many people about this technique, and the comment I get back again and again and again is that it doesn't work. You have to put the space on top. The bees won't work down. I think that's enough talking. You can see what this colony looked like 3 weeks ago. Started off with 1 box. We put a new one underneath. It is time to get inside and see how they're getting on. So just a little bit of smoke for the bees. They don't need much. And then we will get in and see how they're getting on. Okay, I'm gonna get my veil up. So we'll take a look in the top box first, the box that the bees overwintered in. And as you can see, they're in close contact with that feeder. Really important benefit of this setup. Right, so take a look inside here, Zane. So one very happy colony of bees. This is a Lutz Egger queen. This space up here is where there's been additional space up in the feeder that they've made the most of. Very easy one to clear up, but check all the bees cleaning up there. How cool is that, Zane? I think I'm going to take the veil off. These bees are Super, super chilled. Right, what I'm not gonna do is I'm not gonna go into the top box, 'cause I showed you that last time. It's just gonna be the standard overwintering brood. You're gonna have your queen, all of your brood in all stages, tons of capped brood, and it saves me cleaning up this mess. But what is more important is I wanna show you how this colony has expanded downwards to fill the bottom box, that big, huge 14 by 12 box below. The only way they could have done that is by working downwards. We did a video yesterday which showed when you set the bees up in this configuration, even if they don't go down, they still provide with the reassurance that they're not gonna swarm due to space. But when I took that box off, I thought, oh no, they've done it again here. But no, it is just super, super chilled out bees because these were frames of foundation when I put them in 3 weeks ago. And take a look at them now, Zane. So remember I told you about the bees going out and collecting the dandelion and the different color wax that they produce when they're on the dandelion? That is what this ring is here. Lots of different pollen going in. But we'll get that one back in 'cause it is not just that frame. Although you can see the wind coming in, even though it's very warm here today. But this is Zane, pretty much every single frame in this box here. This is a wonderful Lutz Egger breeder queen who has filled this box completely in a matter of weeks. And if there was any doubt whether underbrooding works, I think this colony here just proves it, doesn't it? This was a box, a 14 by 12 box of foundation about 3 weeks ago. It was placed directly underneath and you could even see Some of the old comb that was in there where the bees have come and repaired all of that so quickly. But it was placed underneath this hive 3 weeks ago. The bees have expanded, they're bringing in pollen, they're bringing in nectar, and they are expanding downwards. So if you wanna learn more about your bees and you wanna be able to produce calm, buckfast colonies like this, check out our online course, 14-Day Beekeeper, which will turn you from a beginner to a competent beekeeper in just 2 weeks.
