Best method to transition from med to deep brood chamber?
I started beekeeping with all mediums, but to keep my brood chambers larger and separate from the boxes I use for supers, I'd like to switch to deep brood boxes. I attempted to move half of the medium frames to to deep box accompanied by five deeps this past fall, but the colony never attempted to build out the deep frames. I am afraid to block the queen in only on the deep box with no place to lay in fear of damaging the health of the hive, but this seems to be the only option to get them to build it out. Thoughts?
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I'm a fan of #2 above. Let the bees do what they do naturally (move Up!), allow them to clean up the mediums when they move up to the deeps; you might want to put a queen excluder between the Medium and Deep once you Know the queen is in the deep. After a week or two, remove the medium(s) and QEX