It has been mentioned but Demaree was developed as a swarm prevention method put into use before the bees start swarm proceedings if it is used as a swarm control then it has to be a sort of half Demaree and Horsley, Snelgrove or something else that works for the beekeeper often achieved with experience.
Yes it requires at least two supers to do this.
Did you set up the hive correctly queen on frame with empty frames drawn or undrawn frames in lower box and all the brood above super (in your case) and queen excluder in upper box?
If your bees continue to build queen cells and you keep removing them then after a while they just say bugger you and will leave anyway as what has happened.
Yes a full 14x12 full of honey will be heavy but I don’t know of an extractor that takes 14x12 frames and if that honey is OSR!! you will at least be able to cut it out of the frames around the wires. They will however be good to give them back to the bees for winter feed and spring build up.
Personally I think 14x12 hives are a bit to big to be thinking Demaree unless the queen is that prolific and space is tight. We must be talking hives up to 6’ tall if sitting on a stand thats ok for the likes of Finman but not enjoyable for me.
Tom - Thanks for your comments.
One of the hives started out as a swarm collected last September and I had to put it into a 14x12 box as I did not have a nuc. I thought they might not get through the winter as it was a smallish colony but they did and the queen is indeed prolific - by late March there was brood on all 11 frames - even on both sides of the outer frames where you usually just see stores. By late April they were bubbling over and needed more space which I provided by a super on top but whilst they occupied it they did little else in the super.
On another hive I used undrawn foundation and as soon as the bees had drawn up a few frames they continued to make queen cells.
I set up the ( Demarreed ) hive with the queen, one frame of BIAS and10 frames empty drawn comb in the bottom box; QE ontop of this , then a super with undrawn foundation , then another BB with the rest of the frames on top. I did not place another Q/E above the super as perhaps I should have.
Looks like I should have had another super on too. The bees just carried on regardless making queen cells in both boxes for a while and then just in the lower box. On one occasion - after about 2 weeks - I found a charged queen cell in the super. So either the queen squeezed though the rigid wire excluder ( but there were no other eggs in the super) or the bees carried an egg over the Q/E.
I was also concerned about extracting from 12x14 frames but my friend assures me that his will accomodate them.
You are right about the height of the tower - though not quite 6 ft - and at one time I had them strapped down like I do during the winter.
I'll take a look at the links given above and maybe do things differently next time.
