> When preparing doubles for almonds in late winter, the temptation is
> to reverse the brood chambers of colonies that have moved into the
> upper chamber, since the cluster would often quickly expand upward.
> But ever since we discussed this subject previously, I've questioned
> whether that was a good idea after all.

If your timing is perfect or you are lucky, reversing or addin g on top
works.

However, we used semi-skilled labour to do large numbers of colonies.
We work weekdays and can't time things perfectly.  We also find the
forecasts can be very wrong.

> Since then I've often just removed the lower brood chamber if the
> cluster is not large, in order to allow the bees better access to the
> entrance (to add a chamber back at a later date).

That helps if you don't use upper entrances.  Even with them, the
reduced volume can be a good thing.

> Could you please expand upon what you actually observed when adding
> the second brood chambers above or below when you were building
> package colonies?

Well, by adding below, we could add at our convenience and not wait
until colonies were getting crowded, and we could do the whole yards in
sequence with no exceptions.  If we were a bit early, no harm.

Sometimes the weather surprises, and if we were early, we would
sometimes go back and find we weren't.  The bees went down and if we had
used our judgment, the bees might have been crowded on a hot day and
gone to swarming.  This way, not.

My advice is for a commercial beekeeper who may not see the hives every
day or even every week and needs a plan that does the most good and the
least harm, on a schedule, and for the lowest cost.

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