The reason for doing it would be to give the queen room to expand up. So, put the most full brood box on bottom, the next full in middle, and the most empty on top

 

Here's a Walt Wright article with some good information on reversing.

http://www.beesource.com/point-of-v...om/point-of-view/walt-wright/spring-reversal-not-good-management-for-all-areas/

 

Feral bee hives and man made hives that are neglected for years seem to be busting at the seams with healthy populations.
There are 2 hives down the road from me that have been abondoned that are barely visable because the weeds, grasses and wildflowers have taken over...... bees galore.
No manipulation in either scenario.

 

I also use mainly a 3 medium set up for wintering. What I typically find in late winter/early spring is the bottom box pretty much empty, and the bees and brood split between the two top boxes. If you find your bees in a similar condition and will be reversing, make sure you don't split the brood. Move the empty bottom box to the top, above the other two with brood. If all the brood is in just one box then you have other options, just be careful not to split brood when you reverse.

 

Mike do you find this to be beneficial with most of the three med. set-up and something that should be done or is it not as helpful with the med. as it is with the deeps.

 

I sure wouldn't consider theres much beneficial to a reversal until the weather has warmed substantially in the late spring and there is a substantial amount of brood in the upper boxes. At that point, a reversal will stunt swarming at best and, at worst is a good housekeeping practice.
Walt's observations are always thought provoking. He has recently advocated (I think I have this right) a mid to late summer reversal, moving a top medium of brood back under a deep. He claims the result (unique to the space provided by a medium) is a backfilling of the brood with pollen stores so a colony goes into winter with a significant cache of pollen instead of what often ends up just being empty comb down below.
The great thing about Beesource nowadays is that all lazy folks like myself need to do is offer a few such clues and presto. Graham will provide the link. :waiting:

 

Fine, I'll just do it myself then.
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...read.php?276812-Experiment-2012-13-Acquiring-drawn-comb/page3&highlight=Reverse
lots of interesting reading here but post #49 (I think) is pretty interesting.

 

Rather than a simple reversal I spend a little more time with frame manipulation in early spring. Kind of a cross between checkerboarding and reversal.

I'll usually find the brood spanning the top 2 boxes. I use all upper entrances, so I'm not sure if that has any influence on their location. I'll take the bottom box, which is usually pretty much empty, and move that on top (reversal). But at the same time I will remove some frames with stores from the sides of the two boxes with brood and move them up into the top box (checkerboarded). Empty drawn frames are inserted back into the brood boxes below.

As the brood expands up into the top box there are lanes of overhead empty comb for the queen to lay in and stores on each side of these checkerboarded frames. Later when I notice brood in the top box it will be time to add supers.

 

Jim, that makes some sense to me. It seems I always go INTO winter with my girls in the middle to top area. The bottom is almost always empty.

 

There have been two different philosophies on reversing (besides the philosophy of not reversing...) one is that you are putting the empty boxes above "because bees move up" without distrubing the brood nest. The other is that you reverse repeatedly (like very couple of weeks) and purposly breaking the brood nest up and forcing the bees to rearrange the brood nest with the intent of preventing swarming. George Imirie was a big proponent of this latter method. I don't reverse. Bees only work up becaue that's where we give them the space when we add empty boxes. In nature they work down. But adding boxes on top has the advantage that you can see when they are full to judge when to add more, without having to dig down to the bottom...

 

Ed Holcomb says that early box shuffling encourages brood production because the bees move stores around to reorder things. Of course they move nectar and honey by eating it - which simulates a nectar flow.

 

Basically what everyone is saying is it's up to you. I've reversed prolly 700-1000hives when they first came down to flordia. depending on what hives I'm working, be it the ones I reversed or the other 4000 I didn't, I can't really see a difference in better brood production or pollen gathering. Do I still reverse some still? The answer is yes, sometime I feel like im sort of helping the bees. Am I really? Who knows. But if I came into your
House and moved everything around? Idk. Show me solid scientic studies from different scientist all yeilding the same result then I'll do it one way.