# When to Rotate Hive Bodies



## BoonROTO (Apr 24, 2014)

I am located in Kansas, this is my second year of getting my hives through the winter. Last year I made the decision not to rotate hive bodies and despite my swarm control efforts all but one of my twelve production hives swarmed. This year I plan to rotate the hive bodies. My question is in regard to timing. I have heard some say to rotate hive bodies during the dandelion bloom but that advice was from Northeasteners. Does the dandelion bloom hold true for us Midwesteners?


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## bean tree homestead (Nov 18, 2013)

some rotate and some don't. http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm
As far as timing I would say that is an open ended question based on the weather in your local. I am curious to which swarm control efforts you used that did not pan out for ya?


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## BoonROTO (Apr 24, 2014)

I mainly tried checkerboarding undrawn frames but even split a few hives, they all swarmed anyway. I did not have drawn super frames to add during the flow.

I understand it will be variable year to year and will depend on weather but what are the natural indicators in the Midwest to suggest the timing is right to rotate? 

I am not trying to debate whether or not to rotate. I tried not rotating last year, this year I will try rotating. Most hives never moved down last year which is why I want to try rotating this season.


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## Rooster (Apr 13, 2015)

I rotated my hive bodies last weekend. All my hives were clustered in the upper boxes, and all of the lower hive bodies were completely cleaned out on stores. I would recommend doing a check and seeing were the bees are located in your hives and what condition the lower box is in. 

4th year Beek, 5 of 5 this winter, located in Virginia.


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## LKBruns (Jul 12, 2014)

I checked my hives last Friday. They are all medium hives. The lowest box on all 5 hives was empty of pollen and stores. I put the box on the top. I am in south central Texas


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## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

Checker boarding does NOT involve the use of undrawn frames. Reverse your hive bodies when at least 80% of the brood nest (if not ALL) is in the top box. It does more harm than good to split the brood nest horizontally if it is more or less evenly divided between the two boxes.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

LKBruns said:


> I checked my hives last Friday. They are all medium hives. The lowest box on all 5 hives was empty of pollen and stores. I put the box on the top. I am in south central Texas


What would have happened to the bottom box if you had not rotated it?


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## Bees of SC (Apr 12, 2013)

Sill learning.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

Feral hives don't get their comb rotated and they do well (sometimes better) with no human intervention. Therefore, I do not rotate in the spring. No issues thus far.


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## MikeinCarolina (Mar 9, 2014)

Mr.Beeman said:


> Feral hives don't get their comb rotated and they do well (sometimes better) with no human intervention. Therefore, I do not rotate in the spring. No issues thus far.


Are these the feral swarms that I catch in my traps ?


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Boon, when did you do your manipulations last year. Because of the high numbers of swarms you had it suggests that what ever you did it was too late. The even splits suggest that you had swarm cells because the queenless half will not swarm without a queen.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

I rotate mine when (and if ) the bees (and brood) are all in the top box......


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## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

Mr.Beeman said:


> Feral hives don't get their comb rotated and they do well (sometimes better) with no human intervention.


It is often argued that many "feral" hives are just replacement swarms from nearby "kept" bees. The "ferals" die out, maybe from lack of management & treatment, and are replaced by the next opportunistic swarm. The don't necessarily "do well".

All the same - rotating hive bodies isn't_ mandatory_ - the queen/bees _will_ often move back down. Or perhaps they will swarm. Once you understand how & when to "do it right" ( not split the brood nest excessively), there's nothing wrong with rotating a mostly empty box up. It IS extra work. There's also really nothing wrong with NOT rotating. 

It's a personal choice, like the OP stated. Hopefully he/she has a better understanding, based on the various responses.

Good luck!


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## bean tree homestead (Nov 18, 2013)

snl said:


> I rotate mine when (and if ) the bees (and brood) are all in the top box......


Interesting point snl.. I wonder if because I leave a packed supper and then sum of stores on my hives at the top that, it prevents them from moving up to the upper to the suppers as they would not have any cluster space if they did move up to the top...


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Rotate them daily: http://www.apiservices.com/anivet/


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## Margot1d (Jun 23, 2012)

Based on my experience last year I will wait to rotate till the dandelions bloom. Last year I rotated in March and the bees moved the broodnest back to the top box. I have some friends that did the same and they lost the hive after. Moving them too early stresses the bees.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Rotate them daily: http://www.apiservices.com/anivet/


So the cells end up upside down and the bees like it?:scratch:


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

No one said that. Rotating brood boxes the bees don't like either.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Acebird said:


> So the cells end up upside down and the bees like it?:scratch:


Kind of what I was thinking, but there seems to be a lot of people on here who claim it doesn't much matter when they do cutouts and such.



BernhardHeuvel said:


> No one said that. Rotating brood boxes the bees don't like either.


A salient point.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

BoonROTO said:


> I am located in Kansas, this is my second year of getting my hives through the winter. Last year I made the decision not to rotate hive bodies and despite my swarm control efforts all but one of my twelve production hives swarmed. This year I plan to rotate the hive bodies. My question is in regard to timing. I have heard some say to rotate hive bodies during the dandelion bloom but that advice was from Northeasteners. Does the dandelion bloom hold true for us Midwesteners?


Since last year was your first year with overwintered bees it's no surprise that they swarmed. You probably didn't have any drawn comb to give them, and swarming is just what overwintered bees want to do - it's hard to prevent your first year. If the bottom box is pretty much empty then moving it to the top in the spring is pretty much the equivalent to supering with any other box of drawn comb.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

jwcarlson said:


> it doesn't much matter when they do cutouts and such.


I find it very hard to believe when every race of honeybee builds their comb consistently upwards at about a 13 degree angle.



> If the bottom box is pretty much empty then moving it to the top in the spring is pretty much the equivalent to supering with any other box of drawn comb.


David, there might be one slight difference. The box on the bottom for a reversal already has the correct smell of the hive. I prefer to have an empty box on the bottom for insurance sake. If there is space down there for the bees to expand into they won't swarm. It makes timing less critical but on the other hand I don't live in the south where hive beetles are a serious issue.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Acebird said:


> I find it very hard to believe when every race of honeybee builds their comb consistently upwards at about a 13 degree angle.


Well, they're pretty good at dealing with stuff.


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## schmism (Feb 7, 2009)

one thing to keep in mind when rotating the cluster down (adding boxes ontop of the location they have moved to over the winter) if you essently force them down (move them to the bottom) and it gets cold again they may move up to maintain warmth. If they have brood in the bottom box some will stick behind to try to keep it warm. The effect is you can force a cluster to split up increasing the likely hood that the hive will freeze. (not enough bees in the main cluster, bees left behind to trying to keep brood warm)

Popular opinion is that the spring flyers collecting the first pollen will store it in the first available location (bottom box) once there is an abundance of pollen there that will attract the queen to lay there. (she will move down on here own) YMMV


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

jwcarlson said:


> Well, they're pretty good at dealing with stuff.


Doesn't mean they will thrive. After all they deal with insecticides dumped in there hive, no?


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

schmism said:


> Popular opinion is that the spring flyers collecting the first pollen will store it in the first available location (bottom box) once there is an abundance of pollen there that will attract the queen to lay there. (she will move down on here own) YMMV


You think that happens? If I pull out that bottom box and later put it on the hive they pull it all out in a rain shower for a couple of days wasting all of it. If they do pack fresh pollen in the bottom box I think there are hive bees that move it around the brood nest no matter where it is. So far from what I have read the queen is like the queen of England. Doesn't make too many decisions. However unlike the queen of England she has a job to do and if the Parliament doesn't like how she does it she will be gone.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

schmism said:


> Popular opinion is that the spring flyers collecting the first pollen will store it in the first available location (bottom box) once there is an abundance of pollen there that will attract the queen to lay there. (she will move down on here own) YMMV


That's true. And as the queen moves down, the bees store honey overhead and begin to create a dome of honey above. As the queen continues to expand her brood nest down into the bottom box the band of overhead honey follows behind, creating a wider dome. Next thing you know they are restricted in the bottom box with brood and no where to expand to with the honey overhead. Then they prepare to swarm.

If you reverse and super, they store the incoming pollen in the box above and expand the brood nest upward. There is no dome of honey restricting their upward expansion. It delays the decision to prepare to swarm. That's the strategy behind reversing.


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## AG Fresh (Jun 10, 2015)

Would you want to reverse brood boxes if your aim was to make Spring nucs? Or just welcome the swarm cells and then start splitting?


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

If you have the means to delay or prevent swarm prep it is best to do so even if you intend to split - if for no other reason than so that you can do it on your schedule. Even so, swarm/reproduction season is also the best time to split.

Once a hive gets to a certain point in swarm preparation even (simply) splitting won't always prevent them from swarming. Even if you split out the queen the other half will often swarm out with the virgins which can be worse than letting them issue a prime swarm to begin with.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

> If you reverse and super, they store the incoming pollen in the box above and expand the brood nest upward. There is no dome of honey restricting their upward expansion.


In the worst case there is a dome of pollen, which is far worse than a honey dome, since a solid patch of pollen never gets any brood in it anymore. Bees don't like to put brood in pollen cells. There are even studies out there showing it, but the bees show you, too.

The only thing reversing does is confusion (in my experience). As said, that delays them in the best case, it harms them if timed wrongly. I find it a bit risky and if you do the real swarm prevention work, reversing is unnecessary, too. Keep a young queen, get them building new comb, have tons of young brood in the broodnest, keep the broodnest tight and keep them on a constant nectar flow. Supering. supering, supering not to forget.

It is all about harmony in the broodnest. Everything that muddles things up even triggers swarming. Like the beekeeper looking into the hives every week. And for too long per "inspection". That'll actually triggers swarming.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> And for too long per "inspection". That'll actually triggers swarming.


This is the first time I have heard that claim.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

All depends on the time of year.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> In the worst case there is a dome of pollen, which is far worse than a honey dome, since a solid patch of pollen never gets any brood in it anymore. Bees don't like to put brood in pollen cells.


If you don't reverse, and that much pollen is brought in and stored in the "bottom box", and the bees don't like to put brood in the pollen cells, then aren't they are stuck in the top box with no where to go with the brood ??

I'm not saying that pollen domes don't occur after reversing, but I have never had a problem with it. All beekeeping is local, but in my experience I would consider it very unlikely. Honey domes on the other hand are almost automatic if you don't reverse and do nothing else for swarm management.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> since a solid patch of pollen never gets any brood in it anymore.


I have a problem with the word "never" and can't logically agree with the statement. In a natural un-managed hive the brood nest moves up and down with the seasons. There is no way the bees can avoid putting brood in a cell that once had pollen because almost all the cells had pollen in them one time or another. I have literally taken a medium size box loaded with old pollen and put it on top of a developing split in the fourth position. The first thing they did was unload the pollen creating half in. mounds in the tray below. I winter with 4 mediums and in the spring they are always in the top box. There is no way they could avoid putting brood where there was once pollen.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Acebird said:


> Doesn't mean they will thrive. After all they deal with insecticides dumped in there hive, no?


There's close to 2 million hives in California or just released from CA that will, in part, be supplying the rest of the country with packages, nucs, and queens over the next few months. They're not thriving?


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

MikeinCarolina said:


> Are these the feral swarms that I catch in my traps ?


Could be Mike. lol I run all cutout/swarms captures in my hives. Mutts basically. To my knowledge and my wife's (she's home 24/7) I have yet to have one cast a swarm. Now that I say that my luck would indicate that all of them may swarm this year.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Mike Gillmore said:


> If you don't reverse, and that much pollen is brought in and stored in the "bottom box", and the bees don't like to put brood in the pollen cells, then aren't they are stuck in the top box with no where to go with the brood ??


That's why we remove almost all empty cells in Spring. (Mid-February that is, way before the first strong pollen intake. 
Empty cells and no nectar = pollen dumping. No empty cells, no pollen, no pollen problems. Give empty cells only, if there is plenty of nectar coming in.



Acebird said:


> In a natural un-managed hive the brood nest moves up and down with the seasons.


Don't take what you read as a truth. There is no broodnest going up and down other than in the heads of some internet beekeepers. :scratch: What would that be good for, moving the brood up and down. A broodcell is bound 21 days per brood round. You can't move the broodnest much. On the other hand, honey is taken up and down in no time. This is why you see bees bringing in the honey from the far outside combs next to the inner broodnest. Right now, in the midst of the winter you'll find open cells with honey around the broodnest and the outer combs are emptying more and more. 

No there is not much going up and down, the broodnest is the broodnest.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> That's why we remove almost all empty cells in Spring. (Mid-February that is, way before the first strong pollen intake.
> Empty cells and no nectar = pollen dumping. No empty cells, no pollen, no pollen problems. Give empty cells only, if there is plenty of nectar coming in.


I don't really understand this, must be a regional variation. In early spring here most of the pollen brought into the hive is dispersed and used for aggressive brood rearing. Not much pollen dumping going on during build up.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Mike Gillmore said:


> I don't really understand this, must be a regional variation.


must be, or perhaps a little german engineering in the haus. 

if only we could convince _our_ bees to simply move their winter stores down and free up those supers for this year's crop!


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> No there is not much going up and down, the broodnest is the broodnest.


Take out your excluder. There is a whole different world for you to explore.


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## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> No there is not much going up and down, the broodnest is the broodnest.


Bernhard, with all due respect, I take the comment to mean expansion and retraction of the nest from winter to summer and to winter again. Last year I watched my hives start in the bottom, and grow up into 3 more bodies and almost abandon the bottom by mid summer, then as fall intensified, they filled everything and retracted to the bottom box and the nest only utilized half the bottom box again. Now in the spring, they are up top and everything below is empty of brood nest. I am confident that if everything was left alone, they would expand back down to the bottom. 

Someone mentioned that a natural hive doesn't get rotated, which is true. But we are trying to manipulate the hives to make them produce more than a natural unmanaged hive would produce. The natural hive works to reproduce the species and survive the following winter. They don't make plans to feed us extra honey. We need to trick them into it with manipulations, etc. to get the most out of them. 

MikeinCarolina, you made me laugh and a good point.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> There is no broodnest going up and down other than in the heads of some internet beekeepers. :scratch: What would that be good for, moving the brood up and down. A broodcell is bound 21 days per brood round. You can't move the broodnest much. On the other hand, honey is taken up and down in no time. This is why you see bees bringing in the honey from the far outside combs next to the inner broodnest. Right now, in the midst of the winter you'll find open cells with honey around the broodnest and the outer combs are emptying more and more.
> 
> No there is not much going up and down, the broodnest is the broodnest.


That is not true for some of my hives.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Acebird said:


> Take out your excluder. There is a whole different world for you to explore.


Your comments, dear Acebird, always make me chuckle. Couldn't stop for a minute after read this. :thumbsup:
You probably missed that I kept fixed comb hives for more than ten years - without excluder of course. I populated so many different containers, bins, whatever with bees and watched what they make of it. So the world wouldn't be so much different for me, if I leave away the queen excluder that I now use on my honey production hives.




DanielD said:


> Last year I watched my hives start in the bottom, and grow up into 3 more bodies and almost abandon the bottom by mid summer, then as fall intensified, they filled everything and retracted to the bottom box and the nest only utilized half the bottom box again.


I know what you are describing. That is what I talk about: a pollen clogged broodnest. Like that one here:










Those combs are center combs out of three hive bodies, all brood boxes, stacked upon each other. I experimented a lot with two to five brood boxes to find out what the bees do from it. 

I shot several hundred pictures of each setup thoughout the season. If you watch more closely, you will find what I am describing above.

In the picture above you see all the pollen and either sides, the broodnest got pollen clogged and brood starts to stretch all over the hive. There is no compact, nice, harmonious broodnest, just pattern of brood everywhere. What happens in setups like this, the bees get unsatisfied with the queen, because the brood is distributed all over, the bees think the queen fails. If all that brood would be tight together, all compact and egg-shaped, the bees would not swarm so quickly, because they sense the queen is alright and doing a great job.

A nice tight broodnest produces such combs:



















Such hives that having such a broodnest have a very very low tendency to swarm.

In such hives the cells where the bees emerge (from center to the outside) the emptied cells immediately receive new eggs. 









If you add empty drawn comb in a well functioning broodnest, the queen can't keep up as quickly, and you end up with pollen clogged combs. Emptied, emerged cells receive pollen instead of new eggs. If you see this, the bees soon swarm.









There are various techniques to deal with this. For example adding empty comb below the broodnest, makes the bees loading their pollen into that space. Which also frees up the broodnest from pollen. But bees develop a tendency to forage for pollen. You can make more honey, if you get them to honey hunting instead of pollen gathering. Most methods simply use up too much material (boxes, boxes, boxes) which could be better used as honey supers. Or for more hives. A queen excluder and an adaptable brood box (a jumbo with a follower board) is a much more efficient and simpler way to get the same or even better results. Better = reproducible.


Concerning the up and down of the broodnest. In this picture you see a hive shortly before winter, sitting on two brood boxes. The shade in the upper frame shows the original broodnest. 









Before winter that upper part of the broodnest gets backfilled with winter stores. The bees are in the lower box. In Spring they've eaten their way up and what they do is, they load some of the first pollen right above their heads:









(Notice this is one of the fixed comb combs, that you can lift out of a Warré hive after cutting the sides.)

This is where they start brooding again. 

But still that is the original broodnest! Last year's broodnest. They seldom move out of their original broodnest. Ah, they do of course: in case the beekeeper adds lots of empty cells in early spring into the broodnest. Which triggers pollen hoarding and broodnest clogging. Queen wanders further out to find empty cells to lay eggs into. The broodnest gets patchy, stretches all over the hives. Bees become unsatisfied and want to change out their queen which leads to swarming issues.

So mostly it is the beekeeper who muddles up things. Instead of providing too many brood boxes, too many empty cells in early Spring, better keep them tight - with a small hive like an 8 frame hive - or by using a follower board. The problem with 8 frame hives is, that you can't use the full potential of good queens. A follower board in a huge hive is much more adaptable. Less resources wasted and less manipulations are necessary during the season with the right understanding and the right initial setting them up in early Spring.

Good luck, and do read what Brother Adam wrote. Read over and over again. There lays much in between the lines and with growing experience you understand better what's written.

Bernhard


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

great post bernhard and nice photos. thanks for giving me something to watch for in my hives this year. 

i don't think i've seen pollen getting in the way of broodnest expansion but to be honest i haven't been looking for it.


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## Doreen78 (Feb 25, 2016)

This is a fascinating thread to follow. It seems there are as many ways to swarm prevention as there are beekeepers, lol. And yet swarm they do. I wonder what my cut-out-in-October hive is going to end up doing. I get the feeling I had better keep a box ready for them...

Tolle Bilder, Bernhard!


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## schmism (Feb 7, 2009)

> In the picture above you see all the pollen and either sides, the broodnest got pollen clogged and brood starts to stretch all over the hive. There is no compact, nice, harmonious broodnest, just pattern of brood everywhere.


your showing Warre hive frames. roughly 300mm in width (~10.5") 
Do you also keep standard langstroth hives in addtion? (standard deep foundation width 16.75") 

You'll notice a 6" difference in width or nearly 60% of the frame area shown. 

I have never read enough about Langstroth to tell you how/why he chose those dimensions. 

Part of me thinks the bees have a natural tendancy to want to surround the brood with 3"+- of resources. which on a warre frame would leave you with about 6" of brood in the middle (as shown)









contrast that with what many would say is an ideal pattern on a lang-frame










and you see the same 3-4" resource band around the brood.... but as its wider it leaves much more space in the center for a nice wide groupeing of brood

Your photos also point out a good distinction between warre "box management" and langstroth "frame management". As in the case should a lang deep become pollen bound as shown its easy for the keeper to simply insert new empty frame in between 2 "bound" frames thus creating a bunch of space for the queen to lay.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

schmism said:


> your showing Warre hive frames.


Not just. There are other frame types in between. My standard hive now is the Dadant Jumbo deep frame. 



schmism said:


> the keeper to simply insert new empty frame in between 2 "bound" frames thus creating a bunch of space for the queen to lay.


That stretches the broodnest further. Also think about the following: the queen's ability to lay eggs is limited. Whatever the rate of egg laying is, the perfect size of the broodnest is, when she comes back to cell number 1 after 21 days, so the emerging cell receives a new egg. Immediately. So there is no time for the bees to put pollen or nectar into it.


By adding empty but drawn frames of comb into the broodnest you add more length to the queen's laying path throughout the hive. A frame maybe holds 6-8,000 cells per frame. You are stretching the laying path by roughly four days. That is not so good, as the queen does not return to cell number 1 on day 21 but on day 25. The cell is unattended for a couple of days by the queen. Lots of time for the bees to clogg it with pollen and/or nectar. 

It would be better to remove one frame of capped brood that soon will hatch and add foundation instead. The foundation gets drawn slowly enough so the queen can keep up laying eggs into it. The overall laying path will not be changed, and that is what I do in 2 queen hives, that have a very very limited space only. Three to four combs. What you do in this sort of setup is, you remove a capped frame and add foundation.
Queens have also a tendency during the buildup phase, to lay eggs into fresh comb, which they prefer upon end of swarming season. In late summer they prefer old brood comb.


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## schmism (Feb 7, 2009)

Its been my experience (especially on new packages) that if the hive is slow drawing foundation (for whatever reason) if i give them a drawn frame (in or next to the area she has already layed) she will take to it and have it layed up within a week.

My point is, (again based on my experience) If the hive is short locations for the queen to lay, and she is looking for places to lay, and you give her a new frame to lay in, It does not take her 2-3 weeks to find that frame and lay it up. (especially if its in/around the existing brood nest)


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## schmism (Feb 7, 2009)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Not just. There are other frame types in between. My standard hive now is the Dadant Jumbo deep frame.


How do you like them? do you run 2 jumbos or just one? I have considered trying a couple for years and never gotten around to it. Perhaps this is the year! (i have 4 new packages comming this year)


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> If you add empty drawn comb in a well functioning broodnest, the queen can't keep up as quickly, and you end up with pollen clogged combs. Emptied, emerged cells receive pollen instead of new eggs. If you see this, the bees soon swarm.
> 
> * * *
> So mostly it is the beekeeper who muddles up things. Instead of providing too many brood boxes, too many empty cells in early Spring, better keep them tight - with a small hive like an 8 frame hive - or by using a follower board. The problem with 8 frame hives is, that you can't use the full potential of good queens. A follower board in a huge hive is much more adaptable. Less resources wasted and less manipulations are necessary during the season with the right understanding and the


Bernhard, are you referring to checkerboarding or only to inserting empty drawn comb between frames of brood?


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