Deeps vs all-mediums for brood — my back has filed a formal complaint. Convince me either way
Oregon, 5th year, 12 colonies, and after this spring's inspections my lower back has opinions. Currently running double deeps for brood. A full deep of honey is 80-90 lb; even a deep that's mostly brood with honey shoulders runs 60+ lb, and I'm lifting them off to get into bottom boxes all season. A full medium is more like 50-55 lb. That difference is starting to look like the difference between beekeeping at 60 and not.
So, the all-mediums people: is it actually as good as you claim? My worries: brood nests split across three boxes instead of two, more frames to inspect, more woodenware cost per hive, and every configuration guide ever written assumes deeps. My hopes: ONE frame size for everything means total interchangeability — brood, honey, baiting supers, making splits. Anyone actually converted mid-scale rather than starting that way? How ugly is the transition year?
Converted 30 hives to all-8-frame-mediums at 51 after shoulder surgery, best beekeeping decision I ever made. An 8-frame medium full of honey is around 40 lb — I can lift that all day at 73. Yes the brood nest spans three boxes. No, the bees do not care, that argument is for humans. The interchangeability is even better than you hope: every box is a super, a brood box, a bait, a split. Transition: stop buying deeps now, put mediums under/over as they expand, and retire deeps as they rotate to the outside and get extracted or culled. Took me two seasons, zero drama.
AlpineCarnica · Jun 27, 2026
The counterpoint, from someone staying with deep brood boxes after 18 years: an unbroken brood comb is worth something. Queens lay in bigger uninterrupted arcs, you read the nest at a glance, and fewer, bigger frames means faster inspections at scale. My solution to the weight is different — I don't lift full boxes, I move frames. The box only comes off empty-ish. Both systems work; the question is really whether your management style moves boxes or moves frames.
LavenderSophie · Jun 28, 2026
Middle path exists: deep brood, medium everything else, and simply never lift the deeps — AlpineCarnica's frame-by-frame method. Or single deep brood chamber with excluder, common here in France, so there's no second brood box to lift at all. All-mediums isn't the only escape route for a back.
BethsBees · Jun 28, 2026
As someone who STARTED all-medium (my mentor's doing): the frame-count thing is real, inspections take a bit longer, and box-count anxiety in year one is real too ('is three mediums enough for winter?' — roughly, three mediums ≈ two deeps). But I've never once had the wrong equipment for a job, and I'm very glad nobody let me buy deeps.
MayaBees · Jun 29, 2026
Genuinely useful spread, thank you. Plan: converting my 4 newest colonies to all-mediums next spring as a pilot, adopting AlpineCarnica's frames-not-boxes discipline on the deeps meanwhile, and if the pilot goes well the rest follow as woodenware wears out. My back and my accountant have agreed to a truce on those terms.