The brood box or brood chamber is usually the bottom box(es) of the hive and houses all stages of bee development and food stores( pollen and honey). The food is used to feed developing larvae. Before storing honey in the supers, worker bees ensure that these chambers are full of honey. Beekeepers use a queen excluder to safeguard the queen from laying eggs in the honey supers that they pull out while harvesting. 

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Can you harvest honey from brood box?

The brood chamber honey is usually for the bee colony. They need the stores to survive, especially in winter when flowers are not blooming. It is mainly mixed with larvae and pollen and will require filtering. It is usually darker than honey from the supers and may also be contaminated with mite treatment. Beekeepers usually remove the honey supers before administering treatment in the hive. 

How do you extract honey from supers if brood is present?

Beekeepers may only see the need for a queen excluder once they fall into this menace. Brood in the honey supers is a difficult issue to solve. If there is a lot of brood in a super, the best thing to do is not to extract at all. If honey-only sections are available among the brood, you can cut out the sections. That is if you don’t want to keep the drawn comb. 

You can then give back the comb to the bees to repair the damage. If the sections with the brood are small, you can cut them out, discard them, and try to extract the rest. If unable to use an extractor, you can use the crush and strain method. Always use a queen excluder to ensure the queen doesn’t lay eggs in the honey supers. 

How can you help a honey–bound hive?

A beehive can be over-filled with honey and pollen, taking up the spaces of the queen for laying eggs. Such a hive is a perfect candidate for swarming. Beekeepers should keep on monitoring the honey or pollen in the brood chamber. A honey-bound hive contains large quantities of cells filled with honey. A healthy hive contains brood of all ages( eggs, larvae, and capped brood). Pollen is usually stored near the brood. You can solve this issue by removing the honey-bound frames and replacing them with an empty, drawn comb. This gives the queen space to lay eggs. The removed frames can be frozen and used later when bees require food supplementation. 

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What amount of honey do bees require in winter?

There are various factors that dictate the amount of honey that honey bees will use in winter. These include your local climate, bee population, the bee stock, and the intensity of the winter. It is hard to predict the amount of honey the bees will require, but it is always advisable to estimate on the high side. In cold areas, it is advisable to leave 80-90 pounds of honey for the bees. Before harvesting all the honey in the supers, it is good to check because sometimes bees use one brood box for brood and food storage. Otherwise, you can make a deadly mistake of leaving the bees with almost nothing to brace for the winter season.