> Huestis asked:
>
> > I would like to know if anyone on the list has noticed that about
> > 60% of queens tend to move down to the lower brood chamber and don't
> > need reversing.  Has anyone had similar results?

It would appear that some variable is at work here, it looks like climate
(comments?).  We have seen very different responses to this subject.  In
our mild coastal Alaskan climate the queen will readily work up into two
or three brood boxes and just as readily move down as conditions decree.
Indeed, a simple method (which I have not tried personally) is to install
packages in the top of a stack of four full depth boxes in the spring.  By
fall the queen is normally in the bottom brood chamber and the top is
filled with honey.  There are other factors involved, but the point is
that in this climate the queen moves down readily.

I have not had enough success with wintering to speak to the movement of a
wintered cluster in the spring, but except in late fall there is no
problem with the queen (or colony) being willing to move down.

Tom


--
"Test everything.  Hold on to the good."  (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

Tom Elliott
Chugiak,  Alaska
U.S.A.
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