I’m based in a cold climate (winter) and therefore decided to give my strongest hives a second brood box. I’ve searched in the forum and found 1 related post (link).
So it’s the same for me. The strongest hives where filling the flow supers really well (up to 80%), brood box 1 100% full with brood and bees; After adding the second brood box, they started building it out quickly and moving the honey down from the supers into the second brood box (on top of the first). The reason for me is clear (expected behaviour).
My question is; will the eventually move the honey “back” up again into the flow hive supers? If so, possibly this season? Any experience with this specific topic would be highly appreciated.
I can only offer my gut feeling, based on past experience of dealing with bees, & not your specific situation.
I think in a strong honey flow, the bees will leave the honey in the Flow frames. In the absence of a strong honey flow, I’m thinking the bees will do what you’ve observed. Not only will the bees move the honey down, they’ll also convert it into wax for building the comb in that super, before filling it with brood & honey, depending on what they decide to do.
You probably wont see the bees replacing honey in the Flow super until they have completely filled out the second super.
Hive 1; despite strong nectar flow moved a lot of honey “down” to the second brood box. Interesting enough they left a similar pattern on the flow frames as on a brood frame (meaning; top; honey, middle section “ready” for brood, despite queen seperator). After 1.5 - 2 weeks, they started move honey up again from the second brood box.
Hive 2 and 3; they completely left the honey in the flow frames (also during strong nectar flow) and also started to cap those frames. In the second brood box they also added fresh nectar and pollen.
Once again one can observe that there is no “standard” reaction from the bees. I’ll leave it at this for now. If people are interested in further updates, let me know.