So, if bees naturally build downward, why do we force them to build upward?

[GreenMountainRose]

So, if bees naturally build downward, why do we force them to build upward?

Just curious...

[Michael Bush]

I don't know that we force them to do anything. But bees like to store honey around the brood nest and seem particularly fond of storing it OVER the brood nest. So supers are over the brood nest because that's where bees typically want to store honey. It's not the only place they will store it, it just seems to be their prefered place.

[Jim Fischer]

> why do we force them to build upward?

'Cause it is too much darn work to take
everything apart, lift all the boxes off,
put a new box on, and then lift all the
boxes back onto the hive!

The bees don't care either way, honest.

If there was any advantage to adding everything
"at the bottom", multiple studies would have
revealed it.

> But bees like to store honey around the brood
> nest and seem particularly fond of storing it
> OVER the brood nest.

I'm not sure that the bees care all that much
about where they put the honey, but they do
like to lay eggs in nice fresh comb, which in
a feral hive, would be at the far bottom of
the combs.

If you try it, you would find that the bees
would be happy to reverse the whole traditional
set-up, putting brood above the honey stores.
This might take some "encouragement" with
an excluder, as bees tend to have good
memories of hive topology, and would require
both top and bottom entrances to allow drones
to exit the hive, but it CAN be done.

But you can configure a hive any way you
want. I really don't know of any work that
would recommend one configuration over
another as "better".

[Ian]

To me the bees tend to want to store above rather than below. It seems to me that the queen will lay inthe top box until she gets pushed a bit into the bottom box due to honey and pollen storage.

This has to be the cast when beekeeping without excluders. Honey supers are placed on the hive, without excluders, and the bee emediatley start storing nectar in the boxes, creating a honey barrier and keeping the queen down. Not in all cases of course, otherwise I'd be beekeeping without excluders to, but that is generally why it works.

You would think, if they didnt have a preference, then they would start storing everywhere and anywhere and have no real porpose and plan at hand.

Every fall the bees move into the bottom box to start winter, and gradually move upwards into the second which is full of honey. Never have I opened a hive in the spring, being in the bottom chamber.

[ikeepbees]

I would think that, in most cases, bees must attach their combs at the top of a cavity, and then expand that comb in a downward direction. I don't think that this necessarily means that they always move in a downward direction. In the established colonies I have taken out of walls, it has been clear that the bees were preferentially storing honey above the brood nest, which was nearer the bottom of the combs than the top of the combs. It has also been clear to me that during the late Winter/early Spring buildup period, the bees expand their brood nest into the stored honey. I am in the South - I assume that in the Northern winters the bees must move the cluster into the stored honey as the season progresses. It seems to me that the bees plan on this upward movement.

If you were able to manipulate a colony in such a way as to have the honey stored below the brood nest (I think that the bees would resist this unless you eliminated their options with excluders or by doing the manipulation late enough that they just had to live with it) then I think Jim is right - they would end up moving or expanding into the honey, even if it was below them.

[Ian]

>>they would end up moving or expanding into the honey, even if it was below them.

I dont manipulat their broodnest for a nearly a full year after the spring work is finished. Yet they always set their honey stores overtop of the pollen over the brood nest. Any comb building swarm I have removed always has its honey on top, with brood below. Any wild hive I have removed (we dont have many, just in old houses) follows the same configuration.
Seems to me they prefer the honey above them.

[SilverFox]

:confused: I wonder what would happen if a person were to put bare foundation in a box under the cluster???? Would the queen move down as in wild hives????? After, if and when, she moves will the box above the bare foundation be used as stores???? Might have to try it!!!!!

[Michael Bush]

>I wonder what would happen if a person were to put bare foundation in a box under the cluster???? Would the queen move down as in wild hives?????

I've put a package in four mediums with foundationless frames. The cluster started at the top box in the middle and worked their way down.