I purchased my hive as a hive rather than buying a nuc or package, so i'm kind of stuck with the deep for now given that it's really built out already. Did you begin with all mediums or did you eventually transition to them?
So I did something a little bit different. I put a spin on the traditional "deeps for brood and mediums for honey" setup, and my plan was to use mediums for brood and shallows for honey, because I'm pretty weak, and I figured I couldn't lift a deep of anything or a medium of honey. The issue was that I'm all foundationless, and getting shallow frames drawn fast enough and straight enough in the mediums so I could move them up to the shallows proved way to challenging, so I switched to all mediums my second year and turned all my shallow boxes into moisture quilts. So I did have to transition to one box size, but I didn't have to transition any brood, which is much more challenging than transitioning honey, since you can just cut out all the honey and eat it if it's causing too much trouble.
You
COULD do that with the brood too, but I don't know many people in this country who would think brood was very good to eat.
Two things I disagree with in honeypump's directions.
1. I would never recommend a queen excluder for a "less than 3 year" keep. Just too many things to go wrong. Excluders are best left to experienced keeps.
I also do not use QXs.
2. If you leave the medium off the hive for a week, it will be destroyed by moths and SHB.
Unless you can store it in a freezer. Or freeze the comb and store it somewhere airtight.
A 10 frame deep is 11 pieces, not just 1. It never has to be lifted as 1 unit when full, so weight is not a factor.
This is true and it's what I do now with my mediums of honey. Get the whole family out to the yard, I hand everyone one frame and in two trips the whole box is in the house and no one has a back injury.