Adding Second Hive Body to New Hive

[Hethen57]

I'm using full size hive bodies.  When you are ready to install a second hive body....does anybody ever lift the first hive body and add the second one underneath?  I have read that you sometimes add supers this way, and that the bees like to grow their hive downward, so I was just curious if anyone does this when adding a second hive body for the second brood chamber.  My thought was that the bees would really feel like there was alot of empty space for the hive to expand and would be less likely to swarm.

[mgmoore7]

I would add on top but bring up a few frames of brood from the bottom and put in the top and put the empty frames in the bottom. 

[indypartridge]

Add the second box when they've drawn comb on 7-8 frames of the first box. Myself, for a new hive, I wouldn't break up the broodnest by moving frames around.

[Two Bees]

The queen prefers to move up in the brood boxes so I would not add the second brood box underneath the first brood deep.  This is the main reason that it's recommended that you should rotate your two brood deeps in the late winter/early spring since the bottom brood deep will typically be empty.  Of course, a lot of beeks don't rotate their brood boxes but it is recommended. 

[Robo]

Under supering is promoted by the Warre method,  however, most Langstroth users top super.