How many brood boxes should a hive have? Bees much like humans are influenced by their environment, and the environment you are in determines the resources available to you.
Bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers, propolis from plant resin, chewing gum and other sticky sources, and water from wet places. They will also collect insect sugar secretions and sometimes fungal spores.
When I was a student and started keeping bees I had a wise old Prof. who loved to talk about Kondratiev waves. He was also a surfer, and he told us “Learn to surf Kondratiev waves.
Let us refer to one hive in our apiary as hive A and the others as Hives B. Hive A has workers, a queen, and drones that each provide services. These are all produced in the brood box.
In spring, if you find that the bees are expanding a lot, and you have a hive that is really full of bees, you can always add a second brood box and then split this to make another hive.