Bee movement

[Becky Hampton]

I always assume the bees know a whole lot more about what they're doing and why they're doing it than I do, but I have to ask about this. I checked 2 of my 3 hives today. In both hives, the top boxes (3 medium supers in each hive) had the most brood, bees, and food stores in it. The middle box had some brood, a good amount of bees, pollen in the comb cells, but almost no capped honey yet. The bottom super in both boxes had very few bees in them, no brood, no capped honey, no pollen, no nectar - just basically empty cells with a few bees crawling across them. I removed the empty Apiguard canisters from both hives - finished the varroa treatment and I'll do a mite count tomorrow. I had already removed one super over Labor Day in both of these hives because there was so much empty space and the queens seemed to be slowing down in production. Both hives still have viable queens - larva and eggs in both hives in the top box. I'm feeding heavily because they don't have enough stores for winter.
What's going on with all the action being in the top box?

[Wally]

The bees don't see 3 or 4 boxes. They see only one. They store excess honey in the top, then the brood under it, with the using pollen and honey around the brood. As the excess honey builds up, the brood will be moved down. You need to get enough feed to them for the top box to be honey only. Then they will move the brood down. They will not store honey below the brood, nor will they have brood, then empty space, then honey above the space.

[Becky Hampton]

OK - thanks, Wally!