Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS => Topic started by: FordGuy on May 02, 2005, 01:36:52 pm

Title: Why reverse frames?
Post by: FordGuy on May 02, 2005, 01:36:52 pm

I have seen some talk of reversing frames - why?

Title: Why reverse frames?
Post by: Michael Bush on May 02, 2005, 02:29:01 pm

>I have seen some talk of reversing frames - why?

Frames?  or brood boxes?

People reverse brood boxes to prevent swarming.  I don't.  It does prevent swarming (at least for a while), but it sets the hive back rearranging the brood nest.  I only swap the brood boxes when the bottom one is empty and I want the bees to use it.  They usually move down on their own.

People reverse frames when the bees are misdrawing the comb.  Scraping off anything that is wrong and reversing the frame usually helps.

Title: Why reverse frames?
Post by: SherryL on May 02, 2005, 04:33:58 pm

There's something called "Housel Positioning", that is an organizing of the frames according to the way bees in the wild naturally drawn comb.

http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/housel_positioning.htm

sherry

Title: Why reverse frames?
Post by: Michael Bush on May 02, 2005, 06:12:28 pm

I couldn't get that link to work.  I was interested in seeing another article on it.  Here's one:
http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/housel.htm

That's not generally called "reversing frames" but it's probably the principle behind why they will draw one when you reverse it.