> How far into spring do I do that?

The important thing to consider is not to split the brood nest.

> I imagine that the queen is starting to lay now, so is it "no time like 
> the present?"

The only goal of rotating the boxes is to get the bees back down on the 
floor as movement is generally upward but as all commercial beekeepers 
realize the bees will move down also. Few commercial beekeepers rotate boxes 
but rotating has benefits. Bottom supering at times has benefits but in 
commercial beekeeping many times not enough to warrant the extra effort.

My way in the early  years.
This time of year I placed all the bees & brood in a single deep and brought 
the extra deep back to the shop to be gone through. Combs replaced , box 
repair etc. Then returned the box back on top in a week.

 The next year I took the other box in.

The result was every box in the operation came through the shop every two 
years.

As hive numbers increased I lost interest in the project. Beekeeping done 
right will cause my condition today of three hernia operations, rotator cuff 
operation and bulging discs in back.

I always laugh when new wanna bees can not understand with hives on pallets 
and forklifts those problems happen. Commercial beekeeping is about manual 
labor. I asked a Mexican helper one day if he knew what Manual labor was. He 
answered he thought Manual labor was the President of Mexico.

To this day I do not know if he was serious or pulling my leg!

bob 

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