Removing queen for more honey production?

[David LaFerney]

Does anyone ever remove the queen from a honey production hive to increase production? 

For the last 40 days or so of the nectar flow any eggs that are laid won't become foragers until after the flow is over, and the brood will surely eat a lot of what is coming in.  It seems like removing the queen to a nuc and letting the hive make a new queen during the last few weeks of a flow would make all kinds of sense.

Is there something wrong with this idea that I'm not thinking of?  If this is a useful strategy, at what point in the season should you do it, and what should be the make up of the nuc?

If you have a fall flow it is probably better to let the hive build up until the bitter end, but here our real honey production season ends about the end of June - about 3 1/2 months before first frost. 

[Finski]

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I have used that tens of years. It works sometimes very well. Depends on the weather, if main yield is then when you "planned".

In Finland main yield in in June. It is canola and fireweed to me.

The hive can be only 2 weeks without the queen. Otherwise it suffers too much lack of new workers.

The secret of saving is that the bees which cannot forage in late summer they will die however before winter.

I have a short summer and I have had difficulties to get hives to winter in 2 boxes if I cut brooding.

Now I prefer the June yield and only 2 box wintered hives are able to forage surplus in June.
So difficult to slap 2 flies with one hit.

Sometimes the hive loose its mind when queen is taken off. It looses its willing to forage well.

One thing is that when the hive has no larvae, it does not gather pollen storages at best time.

 

[David LaFerney]

Where I am very much pollen comes in after the useful nectar flow ends, and while there isn't enough nectar to produce a surplus in late summer if the weather isn't too dry there is usually enough for the bees to feed their selves - except usually in August. 

Lots of fall brood can still be produced between September 1 and when our bees stop foraging in October. Last year a very young queen of mine filled all available space with brood in a couple of weeks at that time. So I'm thinking that it might be best to have smaller populations in the summer dearth when there isn't really much for them to do anyway.

Of course they would have to be fed before winter.