A puzzle

[enrico]

Which clearly I, err, my friend, can't know

James

exactly. Just trying to clear up a couple of other posts. Not criticising you(r friend)

 

[ericbeaumont]

no overwhelming rush to complete the switch.

Goran's method, post 2. All else is unnecessary work.

 

[BaconWizard]

Bit of a pain in the a$$ but might still be a good option: Could you strap the boxes together and get a friend to help you lift them both together onto a new deep full of empty brood-comb or comb + foundation and just wait a bit?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Goran's method, post 2. All else is unnecessary work.

 

[bingevader]

The bees naturally don't tolerate empty comb above, so they always go up.. Or we have over here completely different bees..
It is easier this way, cause queen will fast go up. If You want to press queen to go down in box with added frames bellow, You have to press her with intensive feeding and while bees store that food, they press her down with occupying cells with stores..

Just semantics. We're using naturally in completely different ways and setting, the bees, I imagine are fairly similar!
I've never pressed my Queens or intensively fed, but they always move down in the summer, leaving stores above and then up into the available stores in the winter. There are therefore never any empty combs above. I have empty combs below in the spring, but never above.