Could I swap the Super and Brood Box?

[BernardBlack]

One hive of mine is:

SUPER
BROOD

They’ll need more room soon.

I should have put on another brood box instead of a super at the time. But, anyway...

Could I put an empty brood box on top...

BROOD
SUPER
BROOD

....then later on in the summer, when B.B. fills up a bit, swap it with the Super?...

SUPER
BROOD
BROOD

Or would that interfere with the laying/brood pattern?


(The hive layout is more for my benefit, so I can picture it in my head)

 

[The Poot]

One hive of mine is:

SUPER
BROOD

They’ll need more room soon.

I should have put on another brood box instead of a super at the time. But, anyway...

Could I put an empty brood box on top...

BROOD
SUPER
BROOD

....then later on in the summer, when B.B. fills up a bit, swap it with the Super?...

SUPER
BROOD
BROOD

Or would that interfere with the laying/brood pattern?


(The hive layout is more for my benefit, so I can picture it in my head)

Fit a qx and put a super above.

 

[ericbeaumont]

put an empty brood box on top

Quite likely to be used as a super, now that the main flow is starting.

They’ll need more room soon

Room for nectar. After the Summer Solstice tomorrow, laying slackens imperceptibly and swarm risk reduces.

Do as Mr Poot suggested.

 

[Sutty]

Fit a qx and put a super above.

But make sure the queen is below the QE!

 

[enrico]

Remember the bees don't know what is what! If you use no queen excluder they will put the food above the brood. Why? Because when winter comes and there is no more brood they will start eating the food from the bottom up. Why? Because as their stores get less and less they are moving towards the warmest part of the hive and it takes less energy to keep the hive at the correct temperature. You can call any box anything but at the end of the day, they will start to store food above the brood. There may be a bit of funnelling with brood in the centre of the box but that gets less as the season progresses. We can manipulate this by adding a qe to keep the brood away from those upper boxes to be certain their is no brood in them but many don't!