🔶Demaree 30 Days Later
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2022
- Our Demaree videos have been quite popular and we have been asked about following up. Keys: let the hives build up a big brood nest but before they make Queen cells then perform Demaree. Populations stay big afterwards but none of our hives this year swarmed. As we are finishing our spring nectar flow, honey will be harvested and boxes will have splits pulled for our Queen rearing NUCs.
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#Demaree #Swarm #Honeybees #Beekeeping2022
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Quick Tip from a Beekeeper with a Broken Back (Thus my channel name): You never have to lift an entire box... the most you ever have to lift is one frame. Take an extra box with you to the field... one frame at a time to the empty box. Problem solved. It is a bit slower, but trust me, you don't want a back like mine!
Also it never hurts to wear a back brace!
The more I work the bees, yes, the more I'm moving frames or using more and more medium boxes. Not only back but shoulders too!
If you want to raise a queen in the top box, why do you remove all the queen cells but one? Can't you leave them all and let nature decide which queen survives?
If you leave more than one cell, you could end up with a swarming event with one or more virgin. By leaving one cell only, this guarantees the single virgin will mate and return to the box. I have seen healthy hives keep virgins separated from fighting and then "swarm themselves to death".
That’s exactly what I have been doing the past few years, at least most of the time. Since getting a bit older, I have also gone to 8-frame equipment.
As an older beekeeper, I keep some old equipment on hand to pull those heavy honey frames out one at a time to avoid hurting myself! Stack them up and cover them with a screen.
I have done that. The older I get, the heavier things get!
Hello, I am doing the same thing in Norway and it's a great suksess 😀 thank you for good content 👍
Thank you. I am happy it works good for you.
Very beautiful bees.
Thanks. They are Carniolan based stock. Open bred. I do bring in a pure Carni queen every couple years to graft from.
Just done this for the first time and happy with the bottom box but the to BB is now full of honey. Not sure what I'm going to do with it. Keep it for winter and give it back, I guess.
That's part of the learning curve and decisions. How to move frames around moving forward. I'm glad things are working out for you.
Both of your Demaree videos were first-class and very informative. I'm a hobby beekeeper in Melbourne Australia. We're in our swarming season right now and Demaree is working well for me. I'm now subscribed. Thanks.
I'm so glad these help. I had zero swarming this year because of this and great honey production. Good luck going into your season. Thanks for subscribing and following along.
Your bee’s look like yellow jacket’s. Those stripes are so bright
👍🏻
Gracias , por compartir, excelente video , saludos desde Ecuador,,
Thank you. Prevent swarming, use young Queens, build big population results big honey production.
You had a second queen excluder under the top box when you set it up but not when you broke it down
In this 30 day followup video, this is not the same hive that was in the Step By Step video. I set up quite a few Demaree every year and I just happened to pick this one to make the video. I do normally use and recommend an excluder under the relocated brood box. If you miss a Queen cell and she returns from a mating flight, I do not want her getting down into the supers. I have also seen rogue Queens fly into boxes they were not from more than once. I always use a notched inner cover as an upper entrance when doing Demaree for two reasons. 1. This allows any field force to return to the original brood box location when this is first performed. 2. This allows drones to escape. This is a typical looking Demaree hive for my area. This hive made over 175 pounds spring honey (2022) and our average spring harvest per hive in 2022 was around 150# each. Our flow in 2023 was not very good and we still averaged over 100# per hive (mid April thru mid June). We had no swarming on these hives. Good eye. Have a great season.
Super
This method works real well.
Yeah
This works pretty well. After a few years of practice, I'm a believer.
Great looking setup, new subscriber , thanks for sharing
Thank you. Be sure to go back and watch the original setup video.
Hi Tony… greetings from Ireland….love your video… could I introduce you to a smidge of petroleum Jelly on the edge of your supers. The bees can’t stick them ….hope this helps.
Thanks for the tip.
Hi Tony, explained very well. I was looking at this method as a choice for swarming control. But i went with double boxed brood chamber and split that when queen cells were charged and almost capped.
I was very successful in increasing my numbers. Now the flow is on in Ireland. Im praying for the next 6 weeks to be nice. Then up to the mountains for the heather honey.
Very nice job... 👌
Thank you! This worked well for me this year, none of our hives swarmed and all had a big honey crop. We started pulling honey this morning. Our flow is ending and will soon enter a dearth for the summer.
Another option if the hive has Queen cells and their mind is made up they will swarm, remove the Queen, a frame of brood and a frame of food, remove all but one Queen cell, let that box requeen. Take the small split, move it to the top above excluders, similar to a reverse Demaree. The old Queen will continue to lay and contribute to the population of the hive. Once the new Queen is established, you can pull the upper split off to a new hive or if the hive fails to requeen you can move the old Queen back down. I need to make a video on this in the future.
Thanks for watching and commenting. Good luck this year!
@@tonywestsbees6042 Thank you Tony. I hope your season was good. The blessing of God be with you. 😇
If you had a breeder hive and 9days ago had raised queen cells it might be a good moment to weeken the demaree and put a well bred queen cell in a day later as you have the makings of a queenless nuc.
I tried this last spring on about 20 hives but I used cloth instead of a split board and drilled a hole for an entrance, i introduced a queen cell before cells had been started, result? almost total failure ,maybe the queen smell was too strong or they could get thair tongue's through the weave and trophelacs pheromone etc, anyway.
Next step is to try again with two layers of cloth but also use some proper split boards to compare results.
I am in Australia and like you we have a heavy spring flow but with the canola that candy's as soon as the bees swarm so leaving the combs impossible to extract a nightmare.
We get caught raising queen cells, making nucs ,catching swarms and trying to extract everything capped or not,all at the same time.
Sounds like a crazy dance. I hope your year is ending up good.
Those are different boxes ,
From the 30 days before.
Yes they are different. I do Demaree on several hives every year. On the 30 day, I had camera problems making the follow up video on the original hive so ended up using this for the follow up. All the hives looked about the same. All had brood on 6-7 frames, none thought about swarming and all produced double the honey from normal for our area. All were in the same apiary.
I have seen a few videos about the Demaree swarm control method , still I don’t understand what with the brood box on top, do the bees makes a new Queen and can be another hive ??? Thank you for answering
Be removing the open brood and moving it away from the bottom brood location, the only thing left is the Queen, field bees and a frame of capped/emerging bees. The hive suddenly thinks it has swarmed as there is no open brood pheromone and the majority of frames are now empty. The relocated box will attempt to create a new Queen as they are far enough from the old Queen they are now a Queen-less box. You can raise a Queen in this box if you want but that really isn't the purpose of this. If you do raise a Queen in the upper box, make sure there is an entrance for it. This new Queen can then be used later in the year to either make a split or replace the older Queen.
The idea of the Demaree is to trick the hive into thinking it already swarmed but truly does not depopulate the hive resulting in a bigger field force with their focus on hoarding honey.
This video is the follow up video. I did make a Demaree Step by Step video. If you did not see that, go back and check it out.
Hi Tony
Great video, what i was hoping was to see the arrangemet of the two deeps and the bottom one. what i wanted to know was, did you still one deep at the top and one at the bottom or did you droped the above over the bottom one and then the suppers above the two, thank you for the video
Once all the brood emerges in the top box, I usually move it on down to right above the brood box (2nd box up). I still use an excluder over the bottom box as I am single brood chamber most of the year.
Hi Tony. Thanks for this video. I just did my first Demaree method attempt on my largest hive last week. At what point (if at all) would you recommend adding more boxes to the bottom for the queen to expand? I currently have mine set up at 2 mediums with about only 1 box of frames fully drawn and usable.
For my area, our main flow is only 8 weeks long. I use a single deep brood chamber. I rarely see my Queens have more than 7 frames of brood. The challenge is how well the house bees keep the nectar moved up out of the brood box. Some hives do better than others on this. Some hives manage pollen better than others too. Two mediums would most likely be enough room. You can also do a second Demaree a few weeks later if needed.
@@tonywestsbees6042 Thank you for your reply! I'll plan on that then.
@@IndiBex86 good luck
I lost one of two hives last spring (23) and wanting to replace it so wanting to try the system. Dunn said in 7 days of moving brood up top with empty suppers between and queen kept to level on with the excluder, ... the top box will likely start making a new queen within a week. Did you say here there were no cells even on the top boxes? ...
They will absolutely make Queen cells. If you want to raise a Queen while Demaree the hive, remove all but one cell and allow it to hatch. I would have the upper entrance facing the rear of the hive during this so she returns furthest from the main entrance. Be sure to use a second excluder to keep her away from the honey supers. After your flow is over, you can split that box off to create a new hive or use it to re-queen the bottom box with the young Queen.
Go back to that video, about 1:50 into it, I talk about this.
When you make the Demaree, what happens to the drones? Are any captured in the top brood box? You dont want them getting trapped in the QX.
I always have an upper entrance and Drone can get out. That's a good catch as some people forget about the big guys.
Thanks.@@tonywestsbees6042. I watched these out of sequence. I've just watched the spring video when you set up the Demaree and I saw you used 2xQX. Which makes sense. I need to buy some more QX!
@@tonywestsbees6042 I also use Beebox poly's from Finland. Great hives. Interested to see you mix them with wooden boxes. Thanks again. Will be trying the Demaree this year as I am up to quota on hives, and my usual method has patchy results and I often miss QCs in full hives, or I can't get to the hives for 8 days and theyre gone.
The upper excluder is a safety thing. Just in case you miss a Queen cell and she emerges (and mates since there is an upper entrance), this keeps her out of the supers you have stacked up.
I can't stand fighting the bees swarm urge. This keeps one from growing the number of hives and produces more honey. You will like it.
👍👍👍🙋 i sub
Thank you
What kind of boxes are on the bottom of this hive? Do you like them?
Those are Paradise Honey Bee Boxes, high density polystyrene. I like them but they are not without problems. The thermal part is awesome, bees do well in winter and summer. One drawback they have is small ants can really do the damage to them. I have several videos specifically on these boxes, take a look.
I see u found gloves that go higher up your arm to protect your wrists. Where did u get those?
My favorite gloves have been hard to get until recently. My favorite are Infi-Touch nitrile 12" gloves, 6 mil in steel blue (pale lavender). I wear XL. Part number is XOOONWA1RN. 50 in a box. I get them from Amazon. I hate propolis! That's one reason I wear them. Some hives are a little feisty which is another reason so I replaced several of those Queens last fall.
Infi-Touch, Powder Free, Hypoallergenic, 12" Length, Disposable, 6 mil Thickness, Steel Blue, (50 Gloves Count) a.co/d/bIMjMHS
To me looks like you added to much work to them and they can’t keep up. I may be wrong but I didn’t see a lot of bees that why the supers are not so full. I do apply the same method for first time and I keep it low. We have to consider that the weather should be perfect for maximizing the honey harvest and then the quality of the queen etc.
It's a matter of reading the hive as you know. That hive between mid April and Mid June produced 175 pounds and rarely went over 6 frames of brood. That year I think we averaged 125-130 pounds per during that time period. In our area, local Beekeepers rarely get over 45 pounds of surplus and usually split to prevent swarming. This is an option for those that do not want to split or create more hives.
Hello again Tony, I've hear sprinkling cinnamon around you base cinder blocks may help with the ant problem... not 100% sure... as i mentioned earlier i'm a novice (14 months of experience).
Thx,
Dave from Wheeling WV
I have never tried it as we run 25 plus hives and that would get expensive. I will use a Terro bait at the base and that usually takes care of most ant issues.
I routinely use cinnamon where I see ants getting into my hives. I don't sprinkle around the base, rather use it to interupt the ant trail. They are following a scent trail. So far it has worked well and I really don't use that much.
I'll give it a try this spring
Cinnamon works in Atlanta. You do have to reapply after a rain. The cheapest you can find works just fine
What do you do with the top brood box? And do you remove all the supers wether they have honey or not?
As the brood emerges, that box will get backfilled. I will move it back down above the brood box and leave it when I pull the honey supers or sometimes I pull it and use it when raising Queens mid summer. We have a summer dearth so some food is always left behind when we pull supers in June. The bees are also actively making wax so as an option you can pull all the boxes in June, drop on a box of foundation and add a feeder for the bees to pull fresh wax.
Thank you! With all the extra bees do you end up making a split possibly the next year?
I raise Queens in June after I pull honey which ends up using surplus frames and bees. Splits can be made for anyone wanting to expand their hive numbers.
Are you at all worried about extracting honey from old brood comb and or frames that contain pollen and or bee bread?
The majority of those are cycled back into the brood chamber or used in summer splits. Our splits are not made until June and July after we harvest honey. Populations are big, lots of young bees for splits and drawing new comb. A lot of brood comb is also cycled out every summer, frames re-waxed and re-drawn. We also graft most of our Queens in June, July and even August if needed.
What method do you use to assure the bees have enough honey to get them through the colder season? I live in Maine and the recommended amount is approx. 70# of honey for each colony.
Here in southern Ohio we normally only pull honey once, our spring crop which we are in the process of doing right now. There is still nectar coming in but it's slowing down now. Most hives will build up enough stores by winter. Smaller hives might need a little supplement or a few frames of honey swapped in. I start looking at stored food in September. Our killing frost is usually October 10-15. We stay warm though for an additional month after that and hives can burn thru a lot of food before it turns off cold. For us, we over winter with a deep and a medium.
Have you thought about using Queen Temp in top Super to discourage them from making queen cells?
That could be used but it is easy to come back a week later and cut the cells out.
Be sure to check all of this year's videos I made on Demaree. I need to make one more as we have harvested. The hive average this year was over 100# with some going to 150#. For Southern Ohio spring harvest that is quite unusually high.
Any risk of the top Brood box getting a laying worker?
I've never had that happen. I'm sure it can happen but never heard anyone having this problem with Demaree.
Question: What do you do with the upper brood box frames after they filled with honey?
We make splits and raise Queens after the flow and use those frames there.
Why only leave one queen cell?... why not leave all queen cells and let the Queens fight it out?... I'm a novice.
Thx,
I never leave more than one cell in any situation. Leaving more than one cell can cause swarming with a virgin.
Except with russian bees, they tend to have a tendency to produce a boatload of queen cells kill the ones they dont need and sometimes you can get 2-3 queens in the same hive at the same time and the bees will accept them. So I just let my russians do their own thing @@tonywestsbees6042
Name of followup video showing how much honey the demaree produced?
In my area, hives that are split to prevent swarming (or those that swarm) usually only produce two supers (maybe) of surplus honey. Most year, with Demaree, my hives produce 100 pounds surplus and as high as 175 depending on the year. Our main flow is from mid April to early June.
Have i missed something? If this was 30 days after making this Demare ;should those Queen cells in top box have hatched out after 16 days and you should have either a mated Queen or Virgin running around in there
I go in 7 days later and remove the cells. I do not use it to raise a queen but some people do. As an option, a queen can be raised up there and after the flow, the young Queen can then be used to replace the old Queen down in the original brood box.
@@tonywestsbees6042 Yeah but this is titled 30 days later ,not a week later as it should
This video was made 30 days after the Demaree, showing the results. I did discuss the Queen cells and options at the 1:30 mark. It is an option but one I do not use and discuss that in the video.
@@tonywestsbees6042 My bag Tony , I missed the part that you had torn down the cells after a week; I thought they were there 4 weeks later 👍🏼good job very informative
This is an option. Another "tool" to use. Works pretty well. I know some side liners that use this on a hundred colonies in the spring with good results.
I notice u have longer gloves for wrist protection; where did u get thekm?
I use to easily find long cuff gloves (12" gloves) online before COVID. Since it has been a challenge.
Are those boxes Styrofoam, what brand?
Yes, Paradise Bee Box. Made in Finland. Sold by Blue Sky.
Thanks so much for all the details. Seems perfectly priced as well.
@kaminsknator the only problem I have is with tiny ants trying to burrow into it. I have a couple video reviews on these hives.