Reversing brood chambers

[Cindi]

All this talk about unlimited brood chamber.  Good.
Now what about reversing the brood chambers?  In old timer books, they always refer to reversing brood chambers.  Now what if the queen has moved up into the second or third chamber and the lower chamber is relatively empty of brood.  One does not actually know this unless you right in there and look of course.

Does the queen once she has filled the second or third brood chamber, go back down to the bottom (providing you live in a warm areaa in summer) chamber and fill it up?  It is understood that they will probably put nectar in the lowest chamber for ripening, but does there ever come a time when there is an empty box at the bottom that should be moved up to the top, the 2nd and 3rd box being now in the place of the former lowest box? 

More questions, need more answers.  Great day.  Cindi

[Kirk-o]

I think the Idea is if the Queen moves up and the bottom boxes are empty of brood she could get the idea there is no room so you move the uppers down so when she moves up she has room to lay eggs raise brood more room.So I get the Idea is to look in the hive and see were she is and revwrse or do your Unlimited Brood Nest thing
kirko

[Kirk-o]

Oh one other thing I used to have lots of swarming with my bees in L A here after reading Michael Bush's unlimited brood nest and Dee Lusby's pyramiding up things improved for me.My big Feral hive give my 90lbs. last summer I just went through it
yesterday and arranged  the boxes for early spring.The peach tree is ready to bloom were my bees are this means spring for me here in L A.I went and made sure there was room for the quee nad I left some honey in the hive to make sure they got thru
winter here.I have three mediums and a deep to remove with capped honey which is a record for me.My hole learning process has just taken soom time but it is paying off .
kirko

[Michael Bush]

George Imirie likes to reverse them constantly.  I think this just disrupts the brood nest by splitting it all the time.  Of course disrupting the brood nest all the time will prevent swarming, but at a cost I don't care for.

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

[Finsky]

  I think this just disrupts the brood nest by splitting it all the time. 

Michael is very right!

Reversing brood chambers serves many things

* it mobilizes old honey and pollen stores
* it helps to use the surface of combs evenly that they are totally brown when you take off them sone day
* it gives room for queen when bees move honey upstairs from hart of brood area.

In our country many beekeepers make reversing without brains. They do not care what time is of the year or what is temperature.

When I reversed long time ago and look what is happening in the brood area, I found that bees destoroy plenty of brood if you do not use brains. They are not able to take care dispersed brood area. Bees kill larvae from periferia and near cold entrance. What a waste.

When hive is 4 boxes, it stands many kind of operations. However much energy is spended to arrange hive again. When bees take winter syrup and store it, it takes 25% from syrup.  If bees are forced to rearrange they stores again, it takes energy too.  It is better think what you make bees to do. They follow just their instincts.

To mobilize pollen stores from old comb = "partially reversing"

When you have old comb and you want to take it from usage but it has a lot of valuable pollen,  put the frame between larva frames. Bees start to eat pollen and honey. Queen lays frame full and soon you have mere larvae. When frame is capped, lift it upstairs and let bees to emerge.

When I reverse, I arrange combs so that old dark combs travel upstair to supers.
They are many during the summer.

Once upon time I arranged so that I moved dark combs to periferia and light combs in the middle of brod area. One day all brood combs were dark and I was in the piss.

Now I put dark combs in the hart of brood area and then move them up and take off from usage.

Every year I take into use 10-20 new foundations per hive. In south brood cycles are more and combs get old faster. Every year I find hives which have only dark combs and they darken more during the summer.

This part of reversing idea, when and how you give foundations and new combs

When nertar flow is heavy, it is easy to rearrange contents of hive. During bad weathers bees try to nurse brood and disturbing brood area is not a good idea.

Don't put old combs in the place where bees use to store pollen.

After that you must put the comb in the middle of brood area perhaps for long time.
That is why I move light combs to sides of hive and dark in the middle.