I overwintered my hive with three western supers this year; many people will use two deep supers but I just use westerns in my backyard hive so I go with three to provide adequate space and honey stores for the colony (westerns are shallower than deeps, so the bees have less space on the frames- hence the extra box).
During my last hive check, it was apparent that the bees had all moved up into the top two boxes after eating all the honey out of 'Box 1,' the bottom box. Bees have a natural tendency to move upwards, and the queen is apparently reluctant to move back down into lower boxes even if the upper boxes are getting crowded.
So, today I went in and moved Box 1 up to the top position; essentially rotating the boxes (Box 1 moves to Box 3 position, 3 moves to 2, 2 moves to 1). The queen now has a full box of frames with fully drawn comb to start laying in.
I also added a boardman feeder with a dose of Nosevit- more on that later.
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