My plan is to move to 8 frame mediums since I’ve found 10 frame deeps so very heavy. However I don’t want to waste the resources on the deep frames I have so I’m hoping that building a tall stack will encourage the bees to move out of the deeps at the bottom. I then want to use the deeps as swarm traps. So I cut a sheet of 3/8″ external grade plywood and used a brad nailer to fasten it to the bottom and drilled a hole and put an entrance disk over it. There are two brads nailed into the hold to keep mice out.
I had a fairly hard time getting the hive picked up and moved over and I’m sure I crushed some bees in the effort. But the bees were getting excited once I pried the hive off of the existing bottom board and there were a lot of them flying around in the air and I got stung twice, the first time since I started beekeeping. I finally got the hive re-stacked and am once again convinced the need to have lighter hive bodies.
