I would normally add an empty box below one of the brood boxes in each colony, but I’m trying to transition from using 10-frame deep boxes to 8-frame medium boxes…I won’t go into it here because it’s so danged confusing, but this translates into some tricky box and frame configurations.

Yesterday the light came on in my brain about this. Of course, the light went on about two hours after I’d inspected the bees…which means I get to go out there and do it again today.

Here’s my plan: I stacked together two shallow supers (to form one box) and filled them with 10 medium, foundationless frames. Today, I’ll insert the two-shallow unit between the deep brood boxes in Girls of Summer. This way, they’ll have room to work and frames on which to draw comb in which the queen can lay eggs. AND, because these are medium depth frames, once they’re drawn, I can eventually move them into my 8-frame medium boxes.

I hope this works. I’m proud of myself for thinking outside of the box about this stuff.

Yes, the bees will most likely build some funky comb in the gap that shouldn’t be there…between the bottom of the frames in the two-shallow box and the top of the deep brood box. But I guess I can cut that excess comb off and tie it into it’s own frame later. Which means that I’ll get a lot of bang for my buck if they draw comb below these new frames.

I’ll need to move some already filled deep frames containing brood into the two-shallow box in order to encourage the bees to move up. This interspersing of differently sized frames is going to make for a very very interesting situation when I dig in there next spring.

I have two concerns: first, that they won’t draw any comb whatsoever and that they’ll still feel crowded; and second, that I’ll forget that I experimented this way and I’ll have a real mess on my hands when I unsuspectingly discover the interspersed medium and deep frames and the medium frames with that huge gap beneath them.

One reason I’m posting some of this dull information is so I can refer back to them later…so I’m not surprised (more than usual) during my inspections—or, if I am surprised, I can refer to these posts and see what on earth I was thinking.

I TRIED to take pictures for you yesterday, but that dang iPhone just will not respond to my gloved fingers. I got the phone all gooped up with propolis before I decided I just couldn’t spend the time taking the pictures for you. Sorry. I have to work at a better system and use another camera.

Why on earth did I think I could manage a hundred-thousand bees? I am not as smart as I look.

Seriously, I get in there with those bees and all those cells and eggs and larvae and brood and nectar and honey and pollen and whatever else the hell goes on in those alien worlds and everything I think I know disappears. Then I realize that I know nothing.

I keep asking the bees to forgive my clumsiness. They seem to. I hope they can teach me.

One thing I do know: Those foundationless frames work great! Look what my wonderful Girls of Summer did with the foundationless frames I gave them a week ago (and started from popsicle sticks as described in an earlier post):