Feel Free to rearrange frames. You can move the drawn, with or without brood, down and replace the empties on the sides, to get full boxes. You-da-master! The queen will always be working the drawn comb, although I have seen eggs in partially drawn comb that the bees then finish while tending the young. So she wants to lay, and will fill comb to her hearts content. If the bees don't keep up, she will move up into supers to keep going. By re-arranging combs to fill the bottom box, gives her more, down below to work with, so she will be more inclined to stay down. Checker-boarding can help by moving the drawn with brood out to the edges and alternating empties toward the inside, to stimulate drawing them out. Don't super until they have filled 70 to 80% of the current box. You shouldn't get swarming attempts until the queen and / or the bees feel crowded. With empties in the middle, they shouldn't bee too crowded. But when you get a box pretty much full of brood, your bee count will begin to explode exponentially when they hatch, and it can fairly quickly get crowded, so watch and be ready with super.
In short, you can manipulate to get the configuration best for you. All else fails, place a queen exclude'r above the brood chamber, and you'll get pure honey above. Without a queen exclude'r, you may get some odd brood above, but you can simply move those down later. Some beeks just work around the queen and take the honey that they get in pure frames. Depending on flows, and other weather conditions, she may expand the brood chamber and bee count to two full deeps of brood, with as many supers above as needed for honey.
Remember bees are perfectly happy with honey everywhere and in partials. It is the beekeeper that wants it pure for easy extracting. Bees naturally will generally put brood low and honey high, to facilitate movement vertically during the winter, but they don't always get it right. So unless you are one of those beekeepers that are practicing hands-off management, feel free to muck it up, and learn what you can get away with. Might as well form one of your own opinions, to go along with the many that you will find out and about, in this forum... JMO and 2 cents worth.
In short, you can manipulate to get the configuration best for you. All else fails, place a queen exclude'r above the brood chamber, and you'll get pure honey above. Without a queen exclude'r, you may get some odd brood above, but you can simply move those down later. Some beeks just work around the queen and take the honey that they get in pure frames. Depending on flows, and other weather conditions, she may expand the brood chamber and bee count to two full deeps of brood, with as many supers above as needed for honey.
Remember bees are perfectly happy with honey everywhere and in partials. It is the beekeeper that wants it pure for easy extracting. Bees naturally will generally put brood low and honey high, to facilitate movement vertically during the winter, but they don't always get it right. So unless you are one of those beekeepers that are practicing hands-off management, feel free to muck it up, and learn what you can get away with. Might as well form one of your own opinions, to go along with the many that you will find out and about, in this forum... JMO and 2 cents worth.
