Most of my hives do this when they get hot and crowded. I use all medium boxes. I rotate the top and bottom of the three brood boxes frequently to keep the queen laying and prevent swarming. I would normally start with two supers on a good hive. When I see a "beard" of bees I would add a third super on top and a forth on the bottom. This would now be a total of seven medium boxes, with an Imirie shim between the two top supers. In my situation, the queen never lays in the bottom medium box. I "bottom super" with undrawn foundation. When I remove it at the end of the season, it is usually drawn with some pollen. I use these for next years nucs. Is this lot of work? Yes. But sometimes I can get 200 lb or more out of a hive this way. I "bottom super" mostly to protect the bees from skunks. As long as they are in there anyway they may as well help draw comb. Jim Hock Wethersfield, CT. ******** I have two hives of Italian bees. One behaves "normally". Never mind what that means. It's the other hive: I have bees all over the outside of the hive just hanging out and remaining still.. They've been that way for weeks through all kinds of weather, hot, ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************