Give them a good coat of exterior latex paint. Lots of pros and cons but I like them.

Once you have this method figured out, it produces very strong hives and increases honey production quite a bit.

The NUCs and small colonies will struggle with this cold blast coming. Wait and see is all we can do.

I'm glad this worked for you. What would your average be if you did not use this method?

@tonywestsbees6042 I don't know this is my 3rd year as a bee keeper. I got the idea of counting back from start of flow from David Burns. The way it worked was to tell me when I needed to start my brood buildup. My second year I got 1 5 gal bucket of honey this year it was 10 5 gal buckets.

She was a very good one. All of my stock is heavy Carniolan. That Queen was a F2.

@@tonywestsbees6042 Going through your whole Demaree serious.... I'm learning a lot!

@@tonywestsbees6042 What does F2 mean?

Those are made in Finland by Paradise Honey.

This was the best investment I have made in years. Thanks for watching.

Painting really reduces the chewing quite a bit. Thanks for watching.

That is with the Hillco. I really like it.

I'm glad you enjoyed the presentation. So far, I'm really liking the Hillco extractor I got. It really helped speed up extraction and saves my arms. The hand cranking is fine for only a couple boxes but is too much otherwise.

This hive did not swarm. By moving the open brood away from the Queen, they think they are now Queen-less. Just moving a frame of open brood above a Queen excluder will cause this. This hive produced 175 pounds of honey in 8 weeks and still had the original Queen at the end of the season.

This was our first year of trying this method. There is a learning curve. We now empty this method every year, never have swarming and more than tripled our spring honey production.

For me, I pull frames of sealed brood from the bigger hives and give them to the smaller hives to even out the apiary. Unfortunately some people only have a couple hives so there is only so much you can do. I try to even out my hives in late March. By early April most years, they are booming and ready to swarm by mid to late April. Our main flow is late April thru May. Unfortunately I had to run thru the presentation pretty fast, I wanted to get to everyone's questions at the end. This works better if I have 90 minutes as I can explain the procedure a little better I feel. The class was packed and we really enjoyed the day meeting people. Try it in the spring. It's an option.

@@tonywestsbees6042 Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it. I hope to employ this technique next spring.

Crazy year for sure. It's hard to believe it's coming to an end. What we have done in the past two months sets up how things go in the spring. Good luck.

@@tonywestsbees6042 yes it sure does . That swarm went back in the colony the next morning an I have had that to happen quite a few times throughout the years . I lost a whole yard of bees this year where someone decided to spray there fields , garden or flowers what ever it was but ended up doing better overall than last year. So anything we get is a blessing. Thanks

Thanks for watching

Queens are bigger, longer and look very different than worker bees do.

It works well. Good luck.

That was actually comical. This was a feisty hive. I was tired from working bees all morning. The smoker went out. They did produce quite well. Thanks for watching.

This time of year, some hives can be a little "chippy" either from weather or low incoming resources. I have a couple that need re-queened as they are bad attitude all the time and I'll get that done in the coming weeks. Thanks for watching.

I have used two pads in the past but I prefer to use a single followed in 10 days by a second single. Single pads are less disruptive to the colony, does not seem to burn open brood, does not obscure the Queen pheromones (as much). It does clean up the mites but the two pad probably does a touch better. I absolutely will not use two pads if the first three days of treatment are mid 80's or higher, specially if the hives are in full sun nor would I use two pads with older Queens. Just my experience.

I understand your point completely. The majority of the pads were out of the pack and installed within 15 minutes. This is common practice in commercial beekeeping, one person opens and lays the pads on the hives tops and the second person cracks the boxes and installs them. Real fast if the hive is only one or two boxes tall. Awhile back I asked Tom about this and he had no problem with this method, stating it was the length of time the pads are in the hive that is important for efficacy. I do know it's the first three days that does the biggest amount of flash kill but even at seven days, the pads are still strong with fumes. In the past, this method has cleaned the mites up pretty well and I'll be going mite washes in a couple weeks to see where they are at.

👋🏻

I over winter in either double deeps or a deep and a super. Usually sometime in March, I move the Queen to the bottom deep and put an excluder on. From there I run as a single brood box until fall and don't remove the excluder until Late September or October. This works well for me. One thing to watch is some hives are over achievers at pollen collection and will jam up too many frames with it in April and May. There is a learning curve but it works well.

@@tonywestsbees6042 thank you! I like that approach. So during the months you're not concerned about the queen being isolated from the cluster - there's really no need for more than one deep serving as the brood chamber, therefore, a queen excluder down there can only make finding the queen easier when doing things like mite tests/treatment etc., not to mention reducing risk of rolling her.

During warm months, the nurse bees are hanging out with the Queen and brood. No isolation worries. I do have a good followup video, the 30 days later which explains things too. It's a different hive in the apiary but you get the idea.

@@tonywestsbees6042 I watched it, very helpful. Thanks again!

I'm glad it is helpful

Yes, we raise about a dozen Queens (our own cells) each year

I was hoping someone would answer this. I have read these are used in your heat with good results. Maybe someone will still chime in.

Remove the Queen. Go back into the hive 8 days later and remove all the emergency cells. At that point, the hive is hopelessly Queen-less with no way to make a Queen. The hive will then readily accept a cell you give them. The new cell will change the genetics of the hive in about 6 weeks or so.

If I remember right, I had been working hives for a couple hours and my smoker had went out. A small amount of smoke is definitely useful.

I agree. Work with nature, not against it. Nectar is trickling in and the big hives are starting to make white wax again. We will see what develops. Thanks for watching.

Absolutely love the bees. The different colors is just odd paints I had at the time. Most of my boxes are green now.

Glad you like it

You can do several things. You could remove it as a split or leave her there during the flow and add a super above her. After the flow, you can use her to re-queen the bottom box so you have a young Queen going into winter. You could also use her to re-queen a different colony. Lots of options.

@@tonywestsbees6042 how does the colony respond to being directly on top of another? Is the risk of fighting likely? Also how do the bees organise themselves to draw out the supers above and below the 2 broods? Thanks for replying to my message, I have a hive that's pretty busy and I'm half expecting to see swarm cells when I get into it on tomorrow, just wondering what my options are as supers went on not too long ago, if no cells are present I'm thinking of following this method or the 'preemptive' method. All the best.

Actually they do just fine. Queens emerging from a cell is natural for them. If she mates and comes back, she will set up housekeeping and all the bees accept her. The upper box is far enough from the bottom it works fine. Now it is a two Queen system. Be sure to have an upper entrance and use a Queen excluder wherever you do not want brood.

Most of what we pulled looked like that. Lots of Autumn Olive, Honeysuckle and some Blackberry in the mix.

I have noticed that also.

I used an automotive catalyzed body filler that had a fiber filler. Once done, sealed with a couple coats of exterior enamel paint. It worked well. Thanks for watching.

Thank you for the response

We will be extracting Saturday. Looking forward to using it. Huge step up from what we had been using and way past time for this upgrade.

So far, I'm with you. Everyone I have talked to has nothing but praise on these. Thanks for watching.

I saw the monster you got. NICE! I'll be pulling 800 pounds in a week or so. It was time for the upgrade.

I got the big one this week that is just like yours bruce. Took the top off the extractor to lessen the weight. Was ready to roll in about 20 mins even putting the top back on. Now I just have to wait for the nectar to dry in the hives. Getting close though in nebraska.

Thanks

I replied to this but for some reason it is not showing up. You could just drop one on the other and let the bees sort it out but I would just remove the one Queen, paper combine with one sheet of paper with slits in it. No upper entrance is required, they will be combined within a day or two. An active laying Queen is readily accepted by the bees. I would feed them =for a few days. Fed bees are happy bees.

You can do a lot with them. It's just understanding the what and how.

I'm glad it helped. Thanks for watching.

Raising Queens is very satisfying.

Thanks. It's a learning curve. I try to shaw all aspects of my apiary.

I leave the relocated brood away from the bottom box for awhile, until it emerges. The brood up top will emerge and join the hive's population moving down thru the boxes. If you have a long flow, you can Demaree a second time or even a partial Demaree, 2 frames of brood. There are no definites. Lots of options.

Thanks. I appreciate the feedback.

Love raising Queens!

Glad you liked it