It happens even if you Demaree a 14x12. If you have empty supers on top you don’t need another brood. You don’t have a laying queen up top. All the brood comes from the bottom.
It’s the top box that’s getting backfilled. You need room on top. There’s loads of room in the bottom. You’re moving empty frames down.
The other thing is to choose your Demaree colonies carefully. A young queen is paramount.
The actual basic process is quite straightforward really. Have a look at BMH Demaree video . Much of the above discussion is to do with a "rolling" demaree which is one variation of the basic manipulation.
Don't see why not, done it once or twice with no issues.
It depends what you want, I try and leave the queens until their second year before Demarree if It's part of a plan for making increase/nucs, this is also the time most people tell you they are most likely to swarm, only Demarreeing queens in their first full season if I think they may swarm.
But you don’t want to suppress QCs
Never seen a minimum of two shallows recommended.
Not really, QC building is just a side effect of the manipulation, you can either take them down or use them in other manipulations, you never get many anyway as, due to the fact the nurse bees are still getting some pheromone, they are making supersedure cells rather than emergency or swarm QC's
As you were saying about the pheromones, not all demaree colonys produce qcs if the pheromones are strong, out of mine only two produced cells.
Yes selected cells that haven't been rushed to be produced are always going to be better, I completely agree.
