Hello George & All,

George said:
> A queen likes to move UP.  When the queen has lots of OPEN brood in the
upper  box  and there is a lot of capped brood in the lower box, switch
boxes.

There  are a few subjects which come up on Bee-L I try to avoid  because
there  are many different opinions on those subjects between beekeepers and
the best you can do is state your position and eventually the subject
changes. These are important however so new beekeepers on Bee-L can see both
sides and choose the path they want  to  *try* in their own hives.

As to reversing quite a bit has been written in the past and *beekeepers*
opinions vary on its importance. Dr. Farrar did many experiments and wrote
about reversing.

My own experiments ran years ago based on the work of Farrar produced the
same conclusions as Farrar.

Reversing is a useful tool to gain maximum brood production from the hive
and prevent swarming.

The young queen will move down and lay eggs as easily as she moves up in
most cases ONCE THE BROOD NEST HAS EXPANDED ENOUGH THE GAP BETWEEN THE TWO
BOXES IS BEGINNING TO BE FILLED WITH BEES. My tests showed a reluctance for
the  queen to cross the gap by herself going up or down.

Farrar figured out a way to get the queen to move   to the next box without
reversing  and the method  works.

Bob

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