Coming out of winter, sometimes most of the bees in my hives—and often much of the brood—are in the top box.
That’s just how bees move. They work their way upward through the hive as they consume stores during winter. By early spring, you’ll often find the top box full of bees and brood, and the bottom box mostly empty.
When I see that—more brood up top than down below—I reverse the boxes.
I take the top box and put it on the bottom, and move the bottom box up.
That does two things.
First, it puts the brood nest back in the lower position, which is where it tends to sit during the main buildup.
Second, it gives the bees empty comb above them, which is where they prefer to move. Bees tend to build upward, not downward, so this encourages expansion into that upper box instead of waiting for them to work back down.
This is a common practice often called “reversing brood boxes.” Some beekeepers do it every year, others don’t bother. Bees will eventually move down on their own as the season progresses.
For me, it’s just a simple way to open things up early and keep the colony moving.
We run what I call a “story-and-a-half” brood chamber—a deep and a medium. After reversing, that can leave the medium on the bottom and the deep on top. It looks a little unconventional, but it doesn’t matter to the bees.
The goal is simple: give them room to grow where they want to go.