![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Pre-Demaree-ideal.jpg\" "\\"Pre-Demaree")
<\/a><\/p>\n(Diagrams are same as always:\u00a0 yellow = capped honey, green = uncapped nectar, gray = brood, white = empty.\u00a0 Q = the queen.\u00a0 Solid black line = queen excluder.)<\/p>\n
2. Find an empty deep and an empty super with drawn comb.\u00a0 Remove two frames from the center of the deep<\/p>\n
3. Find the queen and insert her along with two frames of mostly-capped brood in center of the empty deep.<\/p>\n
4. Consolidate the brood nest in the original deep and place the two extra empty frames on the outside.<\/p>\n
5. Reassemble the hive with the most-empty deep with the queen on the bottom, followed by a queen excluder, 1 or 2 empty supers, and the original brood box on top.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Hive after Demaree method<\/p><\/div>\n
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The problem is that none of my hives looked anything like a single deep full of brood.\u00a0 Instead they looked like this:<\/p>\n
Double deeps with 12 frames of brood and a few frames of residual winter stores, filling the super above the broodnest with eggs, young larvae, pollen, and nectar.\u00a0 The two strongest hives had built at least 25 queen cups at the bottom edges of frames in anticipation of swarming, but they hadn’t yet laid any eggs in these cups.<\/p>\n Following the principles of the Demaree method, if not strictly the method itself, I reshuffled these hives to look like this:<\/p>\n Based on everything I have read about the swarm impulse, I think this will work.\u00a0 It opens the broodnest, giving the queen space to lay.\u00a0 The nurse bees mostly move up to the brood-filled upper deep, reducing crowding around the queen.\u00a0 The queen ends up surrounded by older bees and not much brood, possibly making her think she has already swarmed.\u00a0 It leaves empty space between the two brood clusters, encouraging the bees to bring in nectar to fill it.\u00a0 It is, as noted by most descriptions, extremely time- and labor-intensive.\u00a0 I’m not sure I would use it for 50 hives, certainly not for 500 or 5000.\u00a0 But for five hives managed for maximum honey production, I think I may have found my swarm-prevention method of choice.\u00a0 Of course I won’t know that for sure until a couple of months from now.<\/p>\n What next?<\/p>\n The bees up top end up isolated from the queen pheromone, and often will produce queen cells.\u00a0 These can’t be allowed to emerge, or the pheromone from the new queens may inspire the old queen to swarm.\u00a0 They should be well-fed queens, raised by strong hives, ideal for making nucs. So late next week (hopefully not too late as I will be away Saturday-Thursday) I will open the top boxes, moving some queen cells into nucs if the weather ahead looks decent for queen mating and destroying the rest.<\/p>\n Two weeks from Demaree, the brood up top will have mostly emerged, and the queen will have filled the bottom box with brood.\u00a0 Brood production is limited if the queen can only lay in one box, and crowding around the queen can reignite the swarm impulse.\u00a0 So I will reshuffle the frames, again moving most of the brood up and leaving the queen with the empty frames moved down from the top box.<\/p>\n The plan will go something like this:<\/p>\n April 2: Initial Demaree shuffle<\/p>\n April 10-11: Destroy queen cells, make nucs if weather looks good.<\/p>\n ~April 16: Second Demaree shuffle<\/p>\n ~April 23: Destroy queen cells, maybe make nucs?<\/p>\n ~April 30: Third Demaree shuffle.<\/p>\n ~May 7: Destroy queen cells and make nucs, or use my double screen board to split the strongest hive<\/p>\n ~May 14:\u00a0 Depending on weather, strength, and swarm reports, either do a fourth Demaree shuffle or else return the hive to normal configuration.<\/p>\n Of course this is beekeeping so plans will change in response to bee behavior and weather. I’ll report as the season progresses.\u00a0 For now the bees look great, and with the bigleaf maples just entering full bloom and 70-degree weather predicted next week it is shaping up to be a good month.<\/p>\n I need some nuc boxes, and I found plans to make four nucs from a 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood.\u00a0 http:\/\/www.squidoo.com\/6-easy-steps-to-make-a-nuc-box<\/p>\n I think I know what my next bee project will be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I feel like I have graduated from beginner to intermediate beekeeper, after spending nearly three hours completely disassembling, reshuffling, and reassembling four booming hives to implement the Demaree method.\u00a0 I found all four unmarked queens without having to examine any … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n