Sharing a super

[alfazer]

Pretty sure I read about this somewhere, but can't remember the details...

If I have a brood box, floor and queen excluder assembly with a divider in the middle to create two separate colonies, can the worker bees share one full size super across the top without quarrel?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

If a colony is happy enough to manage in half a brood box, it's too weak to need a super.

 

[dpearce4]

have a look at these.

http://www.beeculture.com/the-horizontal-two-queen-system/

http://ento.psu.edu/pollinators/publications/twoQueesn

http://www.beebehavior.com/modified_two_queen_system.php

 

[alfazer]

have a look at these.

http://www.beeculture.com/the-horizontal-two-queen-system/

http://ento.psu.edu/pollinators/publications/twoQueesn

http://www.beebehavior.com/modified_two_queen_system.php

Thanks, that's very interesting.

 

[pargyle]

tw

Thanks, that's very interesting.

But Stoopid ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qf6Sv3A9zs

I've read about two queen systems being used in the USA but I've never seen one in use in the UK ... seems like a lot of faffing about to me.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I've read about two queen systems being used in the USA but I've never seen one in use in the UK ... seems like a lot of faffing about to me.

Ron Brown was very fond of running two queen systems with his hives.

 

[pargyle]

Ron Brown was very fond of running two queen systems with his hives.

I didn't know that ... I bought his book 'Seasonal Guide to Beekeeping' in the local Oxfam Bookshop a year or two back but I never got round to reading it and it's lurking somewhere on one of the many bookshelves around the house or in one of the boxes of 'archived' books which are in the loft - I will have to try and find it and give it a go. He lived down in your neck of the woods I believe and wasn't he involved in discovering Varroa when it first arrived ?

 

[Hivemaker.]

Ron wrote a small book about the two queen system he used, have a copy of it here somewhere.
Met him a few times at the various talks he did, he was an interesting beekeeper to talk with.

A thread here about it, quite a bit of background noise in it though.

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21532

 

[pargyle]

Ron wrote a small book about the two queen system he used, have a copy of it here somewhere.
Met him a few times at the various talks he did, he was an interesting beekeeper to talk with.

A thread here about it, quite a bit of background noise in it though.

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21532

Thanks Pete ... I'm not sure it's something that I will do (enough trouble with one queen systems !) but it's always interesting to read aboiut what other people have done in innovatory terms either now or in the past ... It must have been very good to listen to some of these beekeeping characters actually when they were beekeeping - rather than just reading their words.

I can see that 2 queen systems have upsides but come with some potential downsides - I dread to think of the possibilities for 2 queens swarming - either simultaneously or one at a time .... sounds like my idea of a nightmare !

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I acquired a book called 'The skyscraper hive' by Father M Dugat he would have as many as four queens in a hive!! I haven't got around to reading it yet maybe I'm reluctant to read a theory propounded by yet another mad French Monk!!

 

[madasafish]

KISS applies to Beekeeping as most things..

 

[alfazer]

I think the ideas above developed into more than I had imagined. It was basically something about two nucs sharing a super of stores over winter, but I can't recall the source.