Conventionally honey bee colonies are managed in a two deep or three medium brood chamber with additional honey supers on top. The single brood chamber management (SBCM) style has been around for quite some time but has recently gained much attention. The idea behind single brood chamber management is that you restrict, using a queen excluder, the brood to bottom box. There are various pros and cons to this system that we will discuss here.
Pros for SBCM
SBCM is "easier" to manage in many ways
- Less lifting
- inspecting a single box means no lifting the second box in order to gain access
- the single box never needs to be lifted or moved (unless you wish to inspect under the bottom of the frames)
- Less expensive and easier to treat for pest
- since brood is restricted to one chamber the treatment costs are often cut in half
- treating is quicker and easier without having to shuffle boxes around
- Queen spotting
- Finding a queen in a single brood box is much easier then a double
- no need to lift and shuffle boxes to find her and risk damaging her in the process
- Less equipment (hive bodies)
- you only need half the amount of brood boxes versus the convention management style
Cons for SBCM
SBCM does have some trade-offs
- Queen excluders
- SBCM requires a queen excluder in order top restrict the brood to the single box, although you do not need to invest in as many hive bodies, you do need to invest in a queen excluder for every colony you wish to manage as SBCM
- Swarm control
- when starting out with SBCM swarm control is the biggest concern.