Reversed brood boxes - good idea?

[VickyLynn]

I have two active hives. I went in yesterday; one was doing well lots of capped brood, honey, and tiny larvae. I couldn't see eggs but I am assuming they are there. I have never found the queen, but she's got to be in there. I added a honey super, because most of the ten frames in each box were filled.

In the other hive, the top brood box had spotty capped brood on about five frames. The lower brood box was full of capped brood and larvae. I thought that I could improve the top box if I reversed them, putting the spotty box under the full box, anticipating that the queen would go down and use all that empty space. I didn't put on a honey super because there was still a lot of space in the now bottom box.

I was just wondering if I did the right thing. What would you have done? Thanks.

[indypartridge]

What would you have done?

Not saying you did anything wrong, but I would have left them be. During the summer months, queens usually go back and forth between brood boxes. In my experience, beekeepers tend to do more manipulations than are needed.

[Michael Pawelek]

I have found that in my instance that the queens try to move the brood chamber up the hive little by little and I sometimes find the bottom brood box not being utilized so I switch them around where the full one is on the bottom.