reversing hive bodies

[pistolpete]

I've been giving a bit of thought to this lately.   I've read is a few different sources that swapping our the top and bottom brood boxes should be part of spring management.   The justification is that the bees will tend to occupy the top brood box and by reversing you move the brood closer to the entrance where fresh pollen is coming in.  At the same time this gives the bees a chance to expand into the top box, thus easing brood nest congestion as the colony builds up. 

I am somewhat sceptical about this.   It would seem to me that the bees like having brood close to the inner cover in spring because that's where the warmth goes.  That way they have an easier time of it on cold nights.  Last year I did not reverse and they filled both boxes by the middle of may anyway.   They seem perfectly happy to expand the brood nest in a downward direction.  Opinions?

[Jen]

Hey pete- Well I was in the exact same situation early this spring. Nothing in the bottom deep, everything in the top deep. Lots of brood, eggs, drone brood, pollen, some honey. I decided to add some of the frames from the top deep to the bottom deep, equaling it out a bit, adding some new wood/wire frames making more room to avoid a swarm. The very next day they swarmed. It was suggested that I could have just switched the bottom to the top.

There were 6 queen cells in the top deep, so I think it was going to swarm anyway, but I do wonder if I could have caught it early enough and switched the deeps if I could have avoided all of this swarming I'm having now.

[blueblood]

I leave mine.  Survivor hives in the trees and other places don't have a keeper to switch their hive around.

[minz]

Wild bees are trying to swarm. We are trying not to lose our bees.
 Jen, did you not see the QC when you reversed?

[LazyBkpr]

Reversing is more a matter of management and convenience for the beekeeper in my opinion.

   Some bees will move down naturally, but others dont seem to like to.  If they are brooding in the top where do they put the nectar when the flow starts? If they are in the top and you add supers where will the queen expand to?  Usually UP...
   The queen won't lay up more cells than she has bees to cover, so cool spells won't be a problem.
   The issues I have had are if the bees were not all the way to the top, and that top box still has a honey dome above them. Reverse them with the honey dome over them, putting the empty brood box above the honey, the queen will probably NOT cross the honey frames for more laying space, so you restrict the brood chamber rather than opening it up.
   If they still have honey above them I wont reverse. If they are empty above I do reverse. If I find a lot of brood up where they should be putting honey I move them down.

   It lets me do a thorough cleaning of the former bottom box. Swap in new frames, change out equipment that needs repairs or painting, etc etc..  So it is a matter of choice for you depending on your management and bees.

[tbonekel]

I was in the exact opposite situation going into spring. All my hives were single deeps and just now are starting to show some activity up top. I was thinking about reversing, but what I would like to do is once they are in the top, then I don't want to have to get in that bottom deep nearly as much. If I did reverse, I would have to take that new, heavy, top deep off and look in the bottom to make sure that everything was okay. I tend to agree with Blue that they don't have that kind of management out in the wild, but if I went into spring with bottom empty, I would probably switch them. But I don't have to worry about that for about 10 more months.

[Bsweet]

Normally I don't reverse,I let bees be bees and they tend to move as they need. After a good complete inspection in the spring I seldom go into the lower box and by early to mid summer I seldom go into the upper unless I'm pulling frames to make a Nuc. Jim

[brooksbeefarm]

The weather, strength of the hive, and if the hive has a solid bottomboard or screened bottomboard helps me make the decision to reverse or not. Like last night, if i had reversed a weak hive with a screene bottomboard with day time temp of 60F and 30F last night i might of had another deadout. The rest of the week looks good and the weekend in the 70's and i have drones,i may start some make your own queen nucs. Jack

[Slowmodem]

I was determined to get my bees through the winter, so I gave them an extra super of syrup/honey for them to eat.  My two brood boxes are deeps, and the supers are mediums.  When I get into them this afternoon, I expect to find all the bees up in the mediums.  I'll probably have to roll those boxes down to the bottom to get the bees to move up out of them.  I need to get it all arranged so I can put some MAQS in the hives in a few days.  The instructions show to have the brood in the bottom box, and an extra box on top, so that's what I'm going to strive to achieve.

Of course, once I get into the hives, I may find something completely different.  I'm the world's best planner.  It's just that nothing ever goes according to plan!   

[tbonekel]

MAQS? 

[Jen]

tbone- MAQS = Mite-Away Quick Strips. Formic Acid.

These are soo easy to use and saved my hive late last fall.

[riverbee]

"They seem perfectly happy to expand the brood nest in a downward direction.  Opinions?"

yes they do, and i don't reverse unless a problem or a hive that can't figure this out.  also, don't scrape all of the 'ladder comb' off in between the deeps.  this enables them and the queen to move back down.

[apisbees]

Don't reverse till they need it!
I like to add watch the bees leave them in the upper super until they need the room. If a colony has 5+ good frames of brood and 8+ frames of bees then they need the extra space. Once the five frames of brood emerges the bees will need the extra super and at this time if the hive is in a single an extra super is added or the brood boxes are reversed if the queen and bees have not moved down on their own.
Don't reverse till they need it!

[tbonekel]

also, don't scrape all of the 'ladder comb' off in between the deeps.  this enables them and the queen to move back down.

I did this the other day and afterward realized I shouldn't have. The bees will build it back, but probably looked at it, then me and said "REALLY?!?"   

[tecumseh]

some where out there in the blogsphere I have a rather long description of spring time reversing.... I cannot recall if I posted the description here or not?

basically there are several things you are trying to do when you reverse.... it is not really just a matter of mindlessly flipping boxes.   about half my hives don't need to be reversed but these other items still need to be known and attended to if there is a problem.  the most important thing you (the beekeeper) get out of reversing is the knowledge about what is going on inside the box and then attending to any problem that you recognize as potentially negatively impacting the hive. 

as far as my own style of bee keeping goes.... in the fall of the year I set up hives so that the feeder is easy to access.  during the fall and the winter time any burr comb is ignored.  come the spring of the year when boxes can be reversed I do remove any and all burr comb.... through out the summer I continue to remove any burr comb since failure to do so means that when you put that box back on YOU WILL squash a lot of bees in the process....  in EVERY commercial firm I have worked for failure to remove burr comb in the active season gets you very quickly tagged as a sloppy, inept or lazy beekeeper.

due to evolving predator problems associated with the small hive beetle and wax moth I now reverse hives twice a year < the why of this should be quite obvious.

[Perry]

I guess that makes two of us tec. I also tend to remove any burr comb to prevent exactly what you describe, crushing of bees. 

[crazy8days]

I have SBB and all season inner covers. http://www.honeyrunapiaries.com/store/all-season-inner-cover-p-232.html  Bees use the top entrance almost 100%.  I wonder if I would benefit from reversing. I rarely see bees come out the bottom entrance.

[LazyBkpr]

I just reversed a couple days ago. We had a 74 degree day, so I took advantage of it to run through my hives.
   The queen and bees WERE in the top box, there was no honey dome over them, but there was quite a bit of honey on the ends of the frames they missed as they chimneyed in the drastic cold temps.
   So every hive got pulled apart, the bottom boards cleaned, and the top boxes put on the bottom boards. I put two to three new foundation-less frames in the bottom boxes. Frames with honey got re organized in the new top box with four or five new frames installed. The middle box got two or three new frames as well, the old frames were set aside rather than cut out because I have a LOT of expanding to do in a couple of weeks.
   The brood pattern is growing rapidly, but I have opened up the brood chamber and made sure there was plenty of room to expand and grow. They have resources above them on the ends of a lot of frames. If we have a week of bad weather they have what they need to keep going.
   If I had pulled a cover and found the bees below the top box with honey above them I would NOT have reversed. As it is, they were all the way at the top, so now they have a whole new playground.
   You have to look at your situation, and decide on a hive to hive basis if reversing is needed or not.