I’m going to be straight with you. A double brood box is going to be overkill in your first year.
However, if you’re feeling ambitious, I’ll tell you how to go about doing it, and the advantages you’ll get.
First, you’ll need a couple of deep brood boxes (the standard size for a Langstroth hive), and some foundation to put in them. You can use plastic or wax foundation. It really doesn’t matter.
You’re going to be using two brood boxes and no queen excluder.
You see, the idea behind a double brood box is to try to simulate a natural hive. The queen is going to be free to roam between the two brood boxes, and lay eggs as she pleases.
The lower brood box is going to be the “nursery,” while the upper brood box is going to be the “storage.”
When you put your bees in your hive, you’re going to be putting them in the bottom brood box. They’ll start working their way up into the top brood box once they’ve built it out enough, and they’ll start using the top one for honey storage.
The reason you need to put bees in the bottom brood box rather than the top is because the queen can’t jump. If you put them in the top brood box, they’ll be stuck and the queen will be alone in the bottom brood box.
Once the honey flow hits, the bees will build out the rest of the second brood box, and the queen will start laying eggs in it.
What you’ll end up with is a fully functioning double brood box.
Of course, there is a bit of work involved in getting a double brood box to that point, but the reward is that you’ll be able to get through winters with just one brood box in each of your hives.
That’s because a double brood box has more than enough stores for the bees to survive on.
Plus, you won’t need to worry about “checkerboarding” your brood boxes in the fall.
Checkerboarding is when you alternate empty frames and frames full of honey throughout your brood boxes. The idea is that the bees will be able to move up into the second brood box more easily, rather than getting stuck with honey-caulked brood frames.
The important thing to note here is that you’re not supposed to take any honey from your hives during your first year.
If you do, you’ll be condemning your bees to death.
That’s because you simply won’t have enough time to build up your two brood boxes before winter hits. Honey production is something you can only do once your hives are well established.
A double brood box is definitely something to consider for your second year, though.
It’s the way to go if you want to start harvesting honey.
The advantage of a double brood box over a single one with a honey super is that you won’t risk disturbing your brood when you go to harvest your honey.
You see, a brood box is for brood, while a honey super is for honey. The whole point of keeping your brood separate from your honey is so that you can be sure that the honey you’re harvesting is purely honey, without any larvae or brood.
The reason you’re going to be disturbing the brood if you use a single brood box with a honey super is because you’re going to be taking all the honey from the honey super, which means you’re going to have to take it off.
When you take off your honey super to harvest the honey, you’re going to be left with just one brood box, and if that’s all you’ve got, your queen will be squeezed up there with the rest of the bees.
You see, the queen can’t jump out of the way of the bees. She can only walk. Because of this, bees are very careful to not squash her. However, when your bees are all cramped together in just one brood box, squashing the queen is inevitable.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the bees will be fine. They’ll make a new queen if their old one is gone. However, it’s not good for bees to keep having to make new queens, and it’s even worse for you as a beekeeper, because it means your honey production will be ground to a halt until the new queen is ready to start laying.
So, to avoid all that, you’re going to need to use a double brood box if you’re going to be harvesting honey.