brood honey and pollen in all of the frames

[paus]

What is going on?  I opened a hive 2 days ago and all of the frames that were drawn out had brood, pollen and honey.  In a 2 deep 10 frame hive there were 12-14 frames like this, any suggestions?  I just read the log book and this hive had a notation of the same thing from about 5 weeks ago.

[tjc1]

Not sure what your question is - sounds like they are doing great...

[paus]

There is no way to extract honey, with honey,  brood, and pollen in every frame, also the brood is spotty, I am thinking about a new queen, please any suggestions would be appreciated.

[BeeMaster2]

That sounds like a good bee producing hive. You can use it to make splits, just add a queen that is the off spring of a good honey producer. Does this hive have a super above the 2 deep boxes to place honey?
Jim

[little john]

Sounds good to me - all my hives are like that - but then I'm not a honey farmer.  Do you have any supers on the hive ?
LJ

[jalentour]

In my area I would be pleased with that configuration.  I would add a queen excluder and put on a 10 frame box of mediums and hope for some honey.  In your area I'm not so sure what the conditions are like.

[brookscj]

When did you start this hive?  If it was this year then it sounds like a healthy hive filling out its living space and you may not get much honey this year.  If it is from last year then it is past time to add a queen excluder (if you use one) and a honey super to your hive.  You may still have some honey flow left in north Texas before things start drying up for the summer months.  I'd go ahead and add a super even now, but you probably missed out on most of the spring honey. 

That's about where we are in Louisiana we're at the tail end of tallow honey flow in my area and rain every day isn't helping.

[paus]

This is the hive I cut out off a truck door, last June, they also struggled with SHB until I placed a DSBB with oil pan and replaced the solid BB.  They supplied me with a queen cell when one of my queens died? or what.  That is a strong hive now.  All of this was last year.  I moved them in January after some cold weather with 5-6 days below freezing and I moved them on the 5th day, very gently.  They are in a sunny spot now.  They only had 30-40 SHB in the oil pan after about 5 weeks since I last checked them.

[Barhopper]

Sounds like they need more room

[little john]

Sounds to me like they need supers ...

FWIW, I've been experimenting with extra-deep frames, and one colony in particular is on eleven 14"x14" frames, which together provide the same comb area as the Modified Dadant which (afaik) is the largest volume of all the 'standard' hives.

'Successful' doesn't adequately describe the situation which now exists. Last week I struggled to do an inspection, and at first thought that the frames were stuck fast - but they weren't, they were just too bl##dy heavy to lift with only fingertips. Each frame has a good 3"-4" of capped honey at it's (thickened) top, with maybe half of the brood area lower down being back-filled with nectar. I can only guess at their weights - I'd say somewhere around 25lbs each at the moment, and getting heavier by the day. Clearly with such large volume hives there is a requirement to employ supers for honey storage.

From a survival perspective, this situation is brilliant of course - as such a colony clearly needs no assistance from me - but although hugely successful in that regard, it doesn't fit easily into the life of this apiary which is directed towards nuc and queen production, and not honey.  And so - very reluctantly - I'll be terminating the experiment at the end of this season, and reverting to the use of larger numbers of slightly smaller (14"x12") combs, in Long Hives housing 17-20 frames.
LJ