Demaree

[justsmith]

Anyone got any hints on demaree, going to try my frist one this weekend on one of my hives. E.G. how best to let the drones out, problems which might happen

 

[Eyeman]

Jenkins gave me some good advice a few years ago. Perhaps he's still around.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

PM'ed

 

[YorkshireBees]

Take a standard crown / feeder board, cut a slot entrance in one side and cover the holes with a piece of old queen excluder.

Place this board on top of the supers and under your top brood box and this allows the bees (especially the drones) to exit whilst keeping the drones out of the supers.

 

[alfazer]

Take a standard crown / feeder board, cut a slot entrance in one side and cover the holes with a piece of old queen excluder.

Place this board on top of the supers and under your top brood box and this allows the bees (especially the drones) to exit whilst keeping the drones out of the supers.

The same works for me, but I make my board with a deeper space on the topside, about 20mm, which helps accommodate a queen cell that might be hanging down under a frame.
Same way as a floor gives you more space under a frame, rather than just one beespace.

 

[YorkshireBees]

The same works for me, but I make my board with a deeper space on the topside, about 20mm, which helps accommodate a queen cell that might be hanging down under a frame.
Same way as a floor gives you more space under a frame, rather than just one beespace.

Valid point but given the lack of space under the frames I find the bees will make queen cells at the top and find it easier therefore to spot them before removing the frames during manipulation.

Also tbh I just find it very easy to make these boards from a bog standard feeder board! (I'm lazy = don't have time)

Seems to work fine the last few years for me!

 

[therustler]

Did a supposed Demaree. I didn't find the queen. Did the rest. 2 frames of brood in new brood box.
2 supers on top. One super mostly filled. The other super being worked on. Queen exc in between brood box and supers. Just remember I forgot queen exc before I placed mostly full brood on top. Will it still work or have I just caused a mess ?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Go back in three days and see where your queen is then put her in the bottom.
It's not a demaree. I'm not trying to be difficult but you have to know what you're doing and why

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

won't work because the idea is to separate the queen from most of the brood - she goes in the bottom to make it easier to get into the Q- box to tear down any QC's

 

[Uncle Betty]

Found this, might be of some use...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ6CE8nCbHQ

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

As long as you ignore the bit about waiting until you see queen cells before starting it.
In fact that's pretty poor advice, Demarree is a preemptive system - if there are QC's you're too late

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk

 

[Dadnlad]

Started one on our strongest colony last Sunday, marked Queen on 2 frames in box of foundation, QX, 3 drawn supers, QX, original bb with remaining 7 frames of brood

Hoping to raise some queens of our own

Checked on them tonight -not a single QC, not so much as a playcup - little gits

Will a crownboard with a single 50mm hole placed under the top box help to make them feel more isolated ?

Or do I need to go the whole hog and put a proper crownboard and additional entrance on ?

 

[Eyeman]

Started one on our strongest colony last Sunday, marked Queen on 2 frames in box of foundation, QX, 3 drawn supers, QX, original bb with remaining 7 frames of brood

Hoping to raise some queens of our own

Checked on them tonight -not a single QC, not so much as a playcup - little gits

Will a crownboard with a single 50mm hole placed under the top box help to make them feel more isolated ?

Or do I need to go the whole hog and put a proper crownboard and additional entrance on ?

The beauty of the QC's you can get with a Demaree are that they are more like supercedure cells in appearance and are often located along the bottom bars. If you isolate the top brood box you will get emergence QC's- is that what you want?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Will a crownboard with a single 50mm hole placed under the top box help to make them feel more isolated ?

It's not so much the isolation that does it - it's reducing (but not totallu cutting out) the amount of pheromone they receive. It makes them feel as if the queen is failing so they build supersedure not emergency QC's.
I find that if you Demarree young or exceptionally productive queens the pheromone is still strong so they don't make QC's.
I get better results from second or third year queens, but be careful as Demarreeing a good but old queen can make her lay herself to death.

A Crownboard with a small hole will help a lot. I've made up purpose built Demarree boards with an entrance built in and a 3x2" hole for the QX towards the rear of the board.

 

[Dadnlad]

The beauty of the QC's you can get with a Demaree are that they are more like supercedure cells in appearance and are often located along the bottom bars. If you isolate the top brood box you will get emergence QC's- is that what you want?

Nope, trying to avoid that, supercedure type preferred, just got to fiddle with their set up till I get it right

I find that if you Demarree young or exceptionally productive queens the pheromone is still strong so they don't make QC's

That makes sense, looks like that's whats happening. Will try a crownboard with single hole next - after I've swapped in a couple more frames of eggs

Thanks fellas