# General beekeeping > Starting out >  Moving from brood and a half to 14x12.... What's best ?

## drdoug

I am getting a hive that is currently on brood and a half ... I want to move it onto 14x12. What's the best way ? shook swarm ?

or put the 14x12 box above the brood and a half until pulled out and then remove the brood and a half.

any advise welcome.


thanks

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## Alvearium

> I am getting a hive that is currently on brood and a half ... I want to move it onto 14x12. What's the best way ? shook swarm ?
> 
> or put the 14x12 box above the brood and a half until pulled out and then remove the brood and a half.
> 
> any advise welcome.
> 
> 
> thanks


Don't do it! Stick to standard brood frames and double up then you have far more versatility and can manage all sorts of manipulations from the double brood box system. A prolific queen will need all the space, if not so prolific then you can reduce to 6-8 frames in each brood box and use dummy boards on either side. For wintering you have a safer option with plenty of headroom for the cluster to move upwards. If pushed for time during the swarming season you can simply split the boxes looking for tell tale signs of queen cells. 14x12 boxes are very heavy to lift and the frames are too unwieldy for many people to manipulate. There have been 2 or 3 people in our association gave them up as a bad job. I sometimes use brood boxes all the way through for simplicity.
Alvearium

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## madasafish

I run jumbo langs which are bigger than 14x12. I agree with  Alvearium that if you are physically slight or not very strong, a large frame full of bees - or honey - can be very heavy to lift. IF you have to move a full brood box, you are looking at weights in excess of 30kgs which for many is just too much either in strength or back issues. #


(when you grow older, back issues often surface)..

But then hopefully you rarely need to move brood boxes..  which you HAVE to do on double brood for inspections..

Best do a list of pros and cons and take your time.

For example:-
If you need to extract brood frames  - something I do not do - then many cheap extractors will not cope.

# I am an OAP and have no problems but used to weightlift :Cool:

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## prakel

> I run jumbo langs which are bigger than 14x12. I agree with  Alvearium that if you are physically slight or not very strong, a large frame full of bees - or honey - can be very heavy to lift


It's worth adding of course that the Jumbo/md frame (although considerably bigger than the 14/12) is much nicer to handle; it approximates to the magic formula of having the side bars two thirds of the length of the top bar where the deep BS is of a more ungainly almost square shape.

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But in this instance the op's been doing it long enough to know what s/he likes so it's just a case of getting the transfer sorted.

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## drdoug

> It's worth adding of course that the Jumbo/md frame (although considerably bigger than the 14/12) is much nicer to handle; it approximates to the magic formula of having the side bars two thirds of the length of the top bar where the deep BS is of a more ungainly almost square shape.
> 
> -------------
> But in this instance the op's been doing it long enough to know what s/he likes so it's just a case of getting the transfer sorted.



As a big ungainly guy I find the 14x12 fine to handle my other hives are in this format therefore I want to be consistent and move this new one to the same format. I am thinking shook swarm may be a good call.

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## prakel

> As a big ungainly guy I find the 14x12 fine to handle my other hives are in this format therefore I want to be consistent and move this new one to the same format. I am thinking shook swarm may be a good call.


For what it's worth, the way *I'd* probably do it which I can guarantee is different to how most others will advise you to do it would be to place the shallow with the queen on the floorboard, put the14/12 on top of it, then excluder and supers if any, then an open feeder/porter board, then the standard brood on top of that (having shaken the bees from the combs). Incorporate an upper drone escape by setting the box forward a little or by placing half of a clothes peg under each of the front corners. Kill any queen cells which they put up along the way then take the combs off for rendering down; once the nest has moved into  the  14/12 remove the shallow and sort the combs. this is all assuming the combs need sorting, if they're good to keep then the box could go straight on top of the excluder. Unless good reason to think it necessary for health purposes I wouldn't be shook swarming.

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## Bumble

> As a big ungainly guy I find the 14x12 fine to handle my other hives are in this format therefore I want to be consistent and move this new one to the same format. I am thinking shook swarm may be a good call.


Shook swarm will work better when they show signs of preparing to swarm because the colony will be geared up for making wax etc..

I'd probably shake them all into the new box and then put it above a queen excluder above the other boxes, that way the drones won't be caught in the qe and there's no need to have an upper entrance.

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