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Two queen hive

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Lesgold:
Hi guys,

With the spring buildup getting underway, it is time to get everything prepared for a two queen hive experiment. About 5 or 6 years ago I was talking to a beekeeper who had a couple of two queen hives that he said were amazing when there was a flow of nectar underway. It sounded really interesting and I built some of the components for the hive but never got around to putting it into action as I never really saw the need for it over a standard hive. This season will be the year that I give it a try. The thinking was to use this hive for comb honey production as wax would be drawn quickly, cells filled and the honey capped in a short period of time. I will have a good honey flow later in the year when the iron bark will be flowering. It makes beautiful comb honey and I want to be able to take advantage of the time to build up comb honey stock. When I finalise all of the hive components, a few pictures will be posted. The first requirement is a couple of hives with queens of a similar age. I will make splits in the next week or so to get this underway. The hives will need to be up and racing by November so I?d better get things started. Progress will be posted on a regular basis and will include all the successes and failures of the experiment. 

Ben Framed:
Les I am very much interested in your project here. If it?s not a whole lot involved, the advantages and results should be worthwhile in production of all products bees produce! A two for one gain in each hive if all goes well?

I remember The HoneyPump chimed in on the subject of a two queen hive some time ago, I would like to go back and find that conversation, as well as other conversations on this subject. Hopefully other beekeepers will find this topic interesting as well. Please keep the information and updates coming.

Thanks,
Phillip

Terri Yaki:
This sounds interesting.

Lesgold:
There are a few ways that I know of to produce two queen hives and they all have problems. I?m sure that there are many more out there that you guys may want to share. The simple method would be to make the hive in a vertical configuration with a queen and a brood box at the bottom and another one at the top of the hive with queen excluders used to isolate the queens. Honey supers would be in the middle of the hive. The big issue would be getting to the honey supers. The top brood box would have to be removed which would be a bit of a pain. Getting to the bottom brood box would be an uncomfortable job with a lot of lifting and quite a few bees to deal with. Another method that I have considered is to use a Demaree board to keep the queens apart and use two entrances. As the top hive grows, bees could be bled from the top hive to make a super hive underneath. Changing entrances every week or two would enable bees to be continually moved to the supers below. This method should also work well but has similar issues to the first method. Increased swarm potential due to high bee numbers will be a constant problem with a two queen hive. Young, new season queens will need to be used to help reduce swarming potential. This type of hive could also build up to be very high. Managing supers at height  could also create issues.

The method that I will be using uses two brood boxes side by side. Honey supers will be shared by both hives in a single stack above the brood boxes. I now have all of the items sorted so I will post some pictures later.

farmer9989:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27gIpvDcmws&t=51s
 Ian runs new Queens 6 frame nuc three together under regular 10 frame boxes three on top and keeps stacking .
 

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