One or two brood boxes

[220]

New to bees and not sure if I would be better off running 1 or 2 brood boxes.
My bees are in southern NSW 7-800m elevation and will be wintering there. Winter temps don't get super cold (never hits -10c) but we have roughly 60 nights 0c or below.

Like I said new to bees, very new in fact only picked up my first nuc 2 weekends ago and 2 more last weekend that I would class as super nucs, 5 frames of brood a frame of honey and a honey/pollen frame. All are in 8 frame deeps, the 2 super nucs I picked up both had one undrawn frame. I will be inspecting in the next couple of days and expect both of these will be ready for more room.
I'm thinking about giving one another box to use as they see fit and putting a queen excluder and super of the other. 

I don't know anyone that winters bees nearby, there are a few beeks locally but as far as I am aware they all move their hives over winter. I'm thinking 2 8 frame deeps should give them enough room for brood and winter stores. A single eight would probably not have enough to survive winter without feeding.

Any suggestions on which way I should head? I guess starting with 3 hives gives me the option of trying a few different options and seeing what works and what doesn't.

[BeeMaster2]

If you limit the queen to a single 8 frame deep and your queen is a good egg layer, you run the risk of her running out of room and inducing swarming.
Why limit her at all. I have 12 hives and none of them have queen excluders.
Look at Michael Bush's web site on queen excluders. He has some good information on queen excluders.
It is also in his book, The Practical Beekeeper.
Jim

[BeeMaster2]

Here is the link.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesulbn.htm

[Acebird]

This document suggest two boxes.
http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/331697/Wintering-bees.pdf
I am sure you could succeed at getting one box through winter but it is more risky.

[Michael Bush]

When Langstroth invented his hive, his view was that a ten frame deep box was sufficient for a queen to lay in and for the colony to winter in.  Over the years different regions and climates have found different answers to the question of how much space they need.  Typically in the cold North of North America, people run two ten frame deeps (I run four to five eight frame mediums depending on the cluster size).  In the middle South they run a deep and a shallow.  In the deep South they run one ten frame deep.  I think it depends on your climate what will work out the best.  I was in NSW in October and Novemeber and it was 75 F all day and all night, pretty much... so I would tend towards what they use in the South here...

[220]

Thanks for the responses a bit more food for thought. MB our climate is a little different to most of NSW, while our daytime temp for Nov is Mid 70s Oct is only mid 60s and over night temps average low to mid 40s. A cold snap is fairly common for us in Oct and we can see night temps drop to the low 20s for a few days.

Places like Elk City and Wheeler are probably very close to us temp and snowfall wise but we have almost double the precipitation with 48" annually and a little over 100 wet days.

[Michael Bush]

You are still warmer than our "deep south".  Georgia usually has some freezing weather every winter and they tend to run one deep.  All the way to north Florida we get freezing weather and snow occasionally.

[max2]

Yes, beekeeping is very local.
We here in the Subtropics only need on brood box. With two we would never be able to keep up.

[220]

Yes can be very local Max, if I had them in my backyard one brood box would be the go for sure, average temps are 5c warmer only 30 nights below freezing instead of 60, snow is once a decade instead of every year and 12" less rainfall annually.
Only 30km to the farm by road but 4-500m higher in elevation, it is amazing the difference it makes to the climate.