Two queen system

[Summerslease]

I've been reading a booklet by Ron Brown entitled 'A simple two queen system'. It was written in about 1980. I am thinking of using it on one of my hives next year and wondered if anyone has used his system and whether there were any drawbacks.

 

[Finman]

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One good queen produce big enough hives. 6-8 boxes in the hive does not need two layers.

 

[richardbees]

Summers,

what's the advantage?

 

[Easy Beesy]

Two queens means twice the laying and twice the foragers, so a stronger colony (the holy grail) and presumably more honey (if its honey that's important to you).

 

[oliver90owner]

Question might be 'does a double queen single hive produce more than atwo separate one queen hives, and if it is marginal, is it worth the effort?'

Been around for thirty years (at least) and it is clearly not a common practice. That should tell you something!

 

[Finman]

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When I started beekeeping, the common colony size was 1/3 compared to present. Colonies swarmed easily and they diod nor grow bigger. They devided.
HIves were often one box + super-

When eager to swarm and huge laying was crossed in skye's blue, it was quite a package. Big hives were often result from hybrid vigour and they seldom show any mercy to beekeeper.


Nowadays it is easy to buy queens who lays so much that you need ladders to lift 40 kg heavy boxes off and on at height of 2 metres. But after winter many queen have lost their laying power-

And.... if the hives are not big enough I unite them to get foraging power on spring rape field.
4-box hive is not capable top forage yield in my systems.

All hives are not good even if you try hard.







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[Goran]

If You have strong back, time and experienced it's worth of it. Also if You have strong colonies, You'll get more honey when separated. But If You have some not so great colonies-average or so You'll get more honey than separated. Also two way is great to control swarming ( just switch the brood boxes places and it stops). Just to repeat - lot of work and strong back. I don't think to use this system, I strive to keep strong colonies. I don't have much time to bother with it.

 

[rook66]

"Question might be 'does a double queen single hive produce more than two separate one queen hives, and if it is marginal, is it worth the effort?"

No and NO. I have tried it, with two National Broods side by side, and the supers on the centre, it was ok untill they swarmed, together, It was massive.
By all means try it, but dont invest in extra equipment.

 

[oliver90owner]

No and NO.

Got it in one (or two). That is why it has been around for a long time but has never 'caught on'. Most beehive practices have been adopted for many a year because they worked and were simple. When I read of it many moons ago, that was my first reaction. Still is. Still, nothing like re-inventing the wheel, again and again....

 

[Chris B]

It's popular with bee farmers in New Zealand. I don't know any details.

 

[Finman]

No and NO.

Still, nothing like re-inventing the wheel, again and again....

Amen!

 

[jp19sqn]

I am giving it a go with 4 colonies this year as a comparison. I will let you know.

 

[Summerslease]

Thanks for your replies. I realised it wasn't mainstream practice and now I can see the pitfalls.

I have at least one colony that will need requeening next year. Space at the bottom of my garden is limited and I thought of artificially swarming and using the two queen system to a)save space,b)prevent swarming, and c)produce a queen to supercede the old one, who will be in her third year. An increase in honey production would be nice with the larger colony but given our weather that's not a priority.

I'm on 14x12s so I might need a set of steps by the time supers are added (and a strong back).

My alternative was to use an apidea or keiller to raise one or two queens as replacements.

 

[Little John]

I've been reading a booklet by Ron Brown entitled 'A simple two queen system'. It was written in about 1980. I am thinking of using it on one of my hives next year and wondered if anyone has used his system and whether there were any drawbacks.

I presume you mean: http://www.drawhive.co.uk/twoqueen.html

Well, you can do one of two things - either listen to the indefatigable negativity of certain nay-sayers on here - or have a go - otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life wondering whether it works or not.

Certainly there are precedents for employing two Queens - but for specialist purposes, such as:
http://www.bibba.com/john_harding_method.php

I have spoken with several people who have actually used the Harding Method (as distinct from those who just hold a negative prejudice against it), and apparently such two-Queen systems work extremely well.

LJ

 

[Goran]

Well, some great beekeepers used system with two queens. Brood on bottom and second on top. There are many videos on youtube, but no on english, for me synonym for two way system is "Vener system", some use it as original idea, some modified.. Type in Youtube "pčelarska farma vener" just to see the hives..

 

[Finman]

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So much new to try ...

What I do is :

I rear my hives up to date when I carry hives to put pastures like to forest raspberry and spring rape.

Some hive are big enough, 5-6 boxes and some are only 3-4 boxes.

For main yield I kill another queen and unite two weak 3 box hives. Or I may hive take tre 4-box hives and reduce one of them and I get two 6-box hives.

If the hive is too big and difficyukt to nutse, I may take one box of bees and join to a smaller hive.

It is easy in that moment when I have trasported them to another place.

When joining different hives it is important to get balanced hive with brood, youn bees and foragers.
many hives has been splitted for swarming and then it is time to unite them and catch main yield.

So, 2 queens produce bees and then unite them to catch yield. When there is only one queen and that is not very good,
workers have more time to handle yield.

Hive needs not only foragers but young bees too to handle nectar in the hive, handling wax and cleaning cells.

It is a huge mistake that "all bees can forage". That is not possible. Then wrong age bees, like in swarm, must do works where their age is not optimal.

If you have a swarm, after 2 weeks all bees are in foraging age.

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[oliver90owner]

I think one (particularly) ought not to post links on queen rearing systems, which this is patently not, while claiming all sorts of which he/she likely/seemingly knows very little of. Let's see now - that should be about eight supers with a brood box on top? If it was that good, where are all the lurking users? Certainly not adding much to the thread, are they?

I happen to like the Harding queen rearing set-up and would have tried it by now, but no need to go into the reasons again. It is just something entirely different from a production colony situation - as you say, specialist.

When one thinks about it simply, one comes to the conclusion that it is an excess of foragers over brood/everyday consumption which gives the surplus. Two broods will certainly produce more foragers (whether in one hive or two), but the question is still: Is it worth the hassle of saving the use of a floor and a roof? Thirty years on, the evidence appears to indicate it is not.

 

[Finman]

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Professionals do not like big hives. They are laborours to nurse.

But I know that a big hive have more capasity to store nectar in main flow. That is the biggest point.

When main flow comes in, bees must put nectar somewhere. To 2 supers or to 6 supers

One capped supers nees 2 more supers for nectar ripening. 2 capped supers needs 4 supers. So you get 6 supers. That is not rare.

15 kg x 6 boxes capped is 90 kg. That is not much. BUT Two capped honey box is 30 kg honey and you need to it 6 boxes. Sounds very normal.

I have had pastures where all hives get 120 kg capped honey in 3 weeks. To do that they store nectar even in larva cells. Of course you should extract honey all the time if this happens.



If bees cannot work inside the hive and they cannot store nectar, they start to lay on walls. That is common answer to main flow.

But if you are afraid of clustering, put hives so that there is one mile to rape field. So you will never see clustering. They burn hal of yield to distance.

But you Englishmen. Why you are afraid of big hives and big yields?

Look. You get 15 kg from one hive. What about you get 150 kg from one hive. It means 10 normal hives production, not two.

.

I just told this that if you use douple brood, it really means nothing. It is a big issue to harvest big yields.
If you put 9 box hive in bad pastures, they only make new brood and your yield is MINUS 20 kg when at same time in good pastures hives get 100 kg.
Yes, I have seen it several times.

 

[richardbees]

From Goran:

Just to repeat - lot of work and strong back

That count's me out then!

 

[Nic Rhodes]

Big hives are great if you can have the numbers when a large peak flow happens, some of us never / very rarely have strong flows however but just a continuous average flow across the whole summer. I saw a few beekeepers this year with large hives go into 'starving' mode in June when there was no flow due to weather, if they fed then all was okay however more than one of my aquaintances lost big hives as they starved, the smaller hives faired much better. When I kept bees 'down south' then I aimed for these larger flows, but up here I practice a different style of beekeeping as we simply don't have a huge flow (even from the rape).