should I rotate hive bodies?

[rdrcl]

  I just finished a full inspection on two of my hives my weakest and my strongest oddly enough. Anyway it looks like all of the eggs and brood are in the top hive body the bees are very active in the lower hive body. Will the Queen move back down and lay there after she fills up the top or should I rotate the boxes?

[JP]

Perhaps they have drawn quite a bit of honey in the bottom super and the queen had no choice but to move up, or she has layed nicely in the bottom super and was just just expanding the broodnest. Make sure the bottom super is not honeybound. Not sure what your set up is but lots of keepers here use two supers and sometimes three for broodnest, I use two deeps for mine.

[doak]

Do you have a good nector flo? and, do you have a super on.
You may want to take a look see in the bottom box and see first hand what is going on.
If they are storing honey without any pollon, and there is no brood "what so ever" in the bottom,
Then I would switch boxes.
If there is any young brood in the bottom, leave as is.
If there is mostly capped brood in the bottom and young brood and eggs with queen in top, Then I'd switch. "here's" why.
When the brood that is in the bottom hatches, the bees will start storing their winter stores in the top,
If that is not what they are doing already.
You do not want a swarm this late.
I have always read that in the fall to try to have the cluster on bottom and the top one or two boxes of stores on top.
Again, It some times depends on where you are and how late your last major flo is.
Here in Central Ga. I would not do this until after the first of Sept.
Others may have better suggestions.
I do what works for me.
doak

[Zoot]

Are you talking about 2 deeps here? Is this situation taking place in both (the strong one and the weak one)? Are these 1st year hives? Also, what sort of entrances are you using (top? bottom? both?)?

There may simply be no more room for your queen to lay or for your bees to store pollen and nectar. You may need to add a couple of mediums. You may simply need to pull some frames if the bottom box is pollen/honey bound. What part of the world are your bees in?

[rdrcl]

I am in central Missouri dont think there is much going on right now with a flow. I have two hive bodies and one 6 inch super on right now the super has been on about a week and they are just starting to work it. The bottom hive bodies does seem to have a lot of what looks like un capped honey in it maybe that is what is going on. I just want to make sure they have enough honey to make it through the winterand can start strong next spring. There is LOTS of brood in the upper hive body I did not see any queen cells but did see a few long cells that I think are drone cells.  This is the first year I have had these and I did not get them until what I think was after the first big flow of the year.

[Zoot]

If you were using all mediums you could move that uncapped honey up into your upper box and replace it with foundation and even a frame or 2 of brood from your 2nd hive body. It's a beautifully versatile system. Then the queen would likely go back down and lay once some comb was drawn. With your deeps and the limitations they impose, you could still take some frames of stores off and freeze them and replace them with new foundation and a few frames of brood from above.



You're a ways from having to worry about winter stores yet. With some good weather you could very well have something of a flow over the next month or so and then there's the fall flow. You should be fine.

[rdrcl]

If im reading these right I should not worry to much yet. So will just wait until next inspection and see if anything changes. Please let me know if I should do anything else. I am probaly just trying to make the bees do what I want instead of what they want anyway I guess they know a lot more about being a bee than I do  :)

[JP]

Unless you were a bee in a past life.

[Zoot]

I recently re-learned a valuable lesson on bee management:  I was away for almost a month and 1/2 and my bees are healthy and happy. Even my one hot hive has become gentle. Aside from being virtually honey-bound in the most extreme sense all is well.  I have harvested my honey, replaced my supers and I am resolved to intrude as little as possible from now on - obviously, with an eye to all external signs of irregularities, etc. Less is best.

[Moonshae]

Like others, I'm capitalizing on Michael Bush being away to post a link to his website.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#stopswitching