When To Add a Second Brood Box

After my last inspection, eight out of ten frames were filled. That evening I went back to my beekeeping books to check when to add the second brood box. After reading up and surfing the web a bit, I found my answer. The rule of thumb is to add a new box when the lower box is 80% full. Great, I never thought the bees would expand this fast! I decided to wait the mandatory three days before opening the hive again.

Here you can see my brother and me working the hive. There are different methods to adding a brood box, but I chose pyramiding (let me know in the comments when and how you add new boxes to the hive). Imagine the broodnest as a pyramid in the center of the boxes, with the honey frames lining the outside. That is what I'm trying to do. It is a pretty basic process, just move the three center frames from the bottom to the three center slots in the top box. Push the remaining frames in the bottom to the center, then add empty frames to the outside.

This is my hive after I added the second box. I think that it looks really nice (except for the smudge of wax in the center, but hey, that gives it character). Be careful when you add a new box. If you add it too early, you run the risk of demoralizing the bees. Demoralizing is when there is so much empty room in the hive that the bees don't even think its possible to fill all the frames. Why attempt an impossible task? Demoralizing the bees will cause them to build slower, this will hold your beehive back. That is a concept I learned from "The Fat Bee Man" on youtube. He is very experienced and gives great tips.