# two-queen hives



## Star G (Mar 8, 2005)

David. There have been numerous articles about two-queen hives in the bee literature over the past 50 years (even much longer). It's a lot of work manipulating the bees and the equipment and several things can go wrong....meaning you could spend a lot of time manipulating the bees and equipment and still not get the big two-queen super-population colony. In my opinion, it's better to keep two colonies, each with a good, productive queen, in regular hive set-ups and spending the regular amount of time tending them.

As far as whether two-queen colonies are better for comb honey production or extracted honey production......I fail to see the difference. What you do with the honey they produce after you take it from the hive has no bearing on how much honey they will produce.

If you do decide to set one up, I would recommend you use shallow or medium honey supers and provide them with at least 25-30% foundation frames in each box, each time the box is set on them. They're comb-building fools when set up properly.

Good luck.


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## Tia (Nov 19, 2003)

I tried a vertical last year and it was just too much work. Besides, I had to stand in my wagon to reach the top of the hive to check supers. If I were to do it again (and I doubt I will), I would try the horizontal hive that a few people on this board have used. It's 3 boxes across with the two brood boxes containing the queens on either side with the center boxes being the honey supers. That way you can add or subtract supers without disturbing the brood boxes, or you can get into the brood boxes without removing the honey supers. Seems like a good idea and the easiest method if you want to experiment.


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## BeeBear (Jan 20, 2004)

My understanding of the difference between comb honey production and production for extraction is that you want a crowded colony for comb honey, so that the bees will fill every cell and draw them out to full size. You don't care as much, when extracting, that every cell is filled, even the ones in the corners.

Thus, a technique that is designed to create a high bee density to produce the best comb honey would not necessarily be the best choice for maximizing extracted honey production. The goals are different. In the first case, you're aiming for "pretty"; in the second case you're trying for maximum volume.

I would speculate that two traditional colonies would produce more volume of extracted honey, but a double-queen system could be a better choice if you're going for comb honey.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I've done it several times by several different methods. Search on "two queen hive" and similar things and you'll find a lot of discussions on it.

It's a fun experiment to run a two queen hive, but I think it's more work to run one two queen hive than three regular hives and the three regular hives will make the same amount of honey.

The horizontal three box wide method is my favorite of the configurations I've tried. One brood nest is on each end with a vertical excluder and the supers get stacked in the middle. That way it's not so tall and you can get to the brood without unstacking that huge tower of supers and disrupting all those bees. A two queen hive can be pretty intimidating and moving every box in the hive to get to the brood chamber is very disruputing to a hive that is capable of mounting a frightening defense.


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## Black and Amber (Jun 2, 2003)

Michael, Would two brood chambers side by side work, With a Q/excluder on top in the centre and the crates on top of that. Is it necessary to have a throughway between the brood chambers? Thanks.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Michael, Would two brood chambers side by side work, With a Q/excluder on top in the centre and the crates on top of that. Is it necessary to have a throughway between the brood chambers? 

I'm not sure what is necessary, but I've tried a lot of things. I like the center stack of supers because it simplifies getting to the brood chambers without moving any supers. I think you need a common storage place to get the effect you're looking for.

I have done two 12 frame deep boxes with a 1/4" divider up the middle and an excluder on top of the second 12 frame box and standard 10 frame supers on top of that. This worked great from the point of view of having two queens, but I had to remove every super to get to the brood chambers and to get to the second one there was the issue of bees boiling over to the other side and difficulty making sure the queens didn't get to the other side.

In other words:

Problem number 1: Much lifting of supers.

Problem number 2: A super population of bees totally disrupted by me removing and disturbing every single box.

Problem number 3: My inexperience at the time with that many bees in the air causing much panic.

Problem number 4: Trying to examine one brood nest without bees (possibly including the queen) spilling over in large numbers to the other chamber.

Problem number 4 enhanced: Trying to get to the BOTTOM box and still keep the two chambers seperate on BOTH boxes and not have a queen get to the other side.

My other method was one deep 10 frame box with a queen, an excluder, a shallow super, another excluder, another deep 10 frame box with a queen and supers on top of that. Mostly the same problems except keeping the queens seperate wasn't as much of a challange.

The whole point of the three box long system is to allow examination and manipulation of each brood chamber seperately without having to move ANY supers, without having to disrupt the foragers and without having to worry about queens finding each other. It's still a lot of work, but it eliminates most of the drawbacks of a two queen hive.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

Hi all. Just Back from SC working hives. Wow what a week!. We have used the 2 queen system for several years after reading about it in "The Hive and the Honey Bee". You will have a consideable increase in production but as Michael indicates it is labor intensive. Once you get above 40 or 50 hives it gets difficult due to the management constraints. Timing is the key to success. We only run 2 yards (25 ea.) now although if I had more time think it is well worth the effort. We will have the system we use on our web site (beekeepers page) for our May edition of the page.


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## Blue.eyed.Wolf (Oct 3, 2005)

How early in the spring do you add the second queen.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

Dandelion Bloom is the standard according to the Powers Studies. You need strong hives and settled weather though.

I'll get the breakdown on our beekeepers page in Feb.-Promise!

[ January 24, 2006, 06:59 PM: Message edited by: Joel ]


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## Blue.eyed.Wolf (Oct 3, 2005)

Do you find this a good way to build up populations for splits and/or nucs?


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## Blue.eyed.Wolf (Oct 3, 2005)

Let me be more specific. It has been said that a two queen hive makes as much honey as two single queen hives, with 3 times the work. However I am after bees. It has been said that 2-queen hives can have an explosive population. I am taking that to mean faster total population buildup than 2 single queen hives. So heres my plan.

Set up a 2 queen horazontal hive. In 3 weeks when the brood is starting to emerge, take half of the brood out of each brood nest, also a good time to checker board in empty frames to induce natural cell. With this brood start another 2 queen set up, (young bees, better queen acceptance) In another 3 weeks take out half the brood form all 4 brood nests and set up 2 more 2-queen hives. When brood production slowes down in the mid summer, I can split all the 2-queen hives into singles. The advantage I see here is that the 2-queens will be shareing a larger "critical mass" sized work force allowing for faster brood buildup and better security from the robbing that plagues a smaller single queen split.

By taking out half the brood every 3 weeks, the population of the parent hives should never grow any faster than a single queen hive would.

Everything I read in the archives refers to 2-queens and honey production. Has anyone tried it in regards to population production? 


I just did the math...if that worked as easily as it was to type, if I started with 1 two-queen hive on March 1, I would have 64 2-queen hives by July 1, to be split down to 128 single queen hives. Thats a lotta bees. I better get back in the wood shop and get to building.

[ January 24, 2006, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: Blue.eyed.Wolf ]


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Sounds like a lot of work, but it might work well. Let us know how it goes. I've built a couple of long hives with grooves for excluders to do this, but haven't had the time or energy to run them as two queen hives.


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## Blue.eyed.Wolf (Oct 3, 2005)

> sounds like a lot of work, but it might work well.

I'm trying to decide if thats an endorsement or if your patronising me. I use a simular statement when my boy come in with one of his "brilliant and cunning plans"

If a laying queen has 4 medium frames of brood, and a full work force, is it safe to asume she will have 8 frames of brood 3 weeks later? My plan depends on this as a minimum.


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## Keith Benson (Feb 17, 2003)

BEW, I suspect Micheal is sincerely endorsing you. he does a lot of his own experimentation and tries to foster that spirit in others.

Keith


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I'm trying to decide if thats an endorsement or if your patronising me. I use a simular statement when my boy come in with one of his "brilliant and cunning plans"

If I thought it was a bad plan I'd point out the problems. I just think two queen hives take some work. But if I were to do it, I'd do it in a long box like you're planning.

>If a laying queen has 4 medium frames of brood, and a full work force, is it safe to asume she will have 8 frames of brood 3 weeks later?

It's never safe to assume with bees.







They have plans of their own. Then there is the weather, the season etc. How much brood she will have is directly related to resources (nectar and pollen and foragers to get the nectar and pollen and nurse bees to care for the brood) It's not really entirely dependant on the number of queens.

>My plan depends on this as a minimum.

If you start with some surplus bees (foragers and nurse bees) and there's some kind of flow they should be able to do that.


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

BEW

Did that last year on 3 long hives (34 frame). It will work better than even you image. There is one flaw though, if you don't keep a close eye on them they will swarm before you do your splits.


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## Blue.eyed.Wolf (Oct 3, 2005)

> If I had thought it was a bad plan, I point out the problems.

I have noticed that, I was being humorious. 

Thanks Pegg and Mike, I'll give it a whirl.


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## Roundman (Feb 29, 2004)

I to have tryed different was to get a 2 Queen system From.making a split placing it on top of the parrent hive seperated by a screen With the entrance Facing the same direction of the parent hive then when the honey flow got started. would remove the screen.just leave the two queens in the colonie as long as the flow is heavy and still going they will usally tolerate each other. ALSO Last year i tryed it when i found a hive wanting to swarm.the old had alread left with a swarm queen cells were hatching i found a queen coming out of her cell in the bottom brood so i left her there placed a q excluder on top went through the second Deep brood box Knock off all other cells except one that was chewing out.Put on the 3 supers for then Elevated the lid So the queen could take a mating flight. The bees in the hive were use to using the bottom entrance by then so the workers didnt us the top entrance this hive made lots more honey stayed stronge through out the summer. was thinking about trying it by raising q-cells and do it early before they get the notion to swarm ...bivide and put a rip q cell in each part .


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## AndrewSchwab (Dec 9, 2005)

I did the 2 queen hive thing last year. Start out by saying they ARE twice the work. But they are still a force to be seen  

I used queens from the year before(in case it crashed and burned)  I combined two small nucs(2 framer) together, one above the other. Split by an excluder. Also sprayed all the bees with suger water as it was put together.
Goood thing these where nice bees cause it was full from top to bottom of bees. Put up over 300lbs of honey each.  

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/AndrewSchwab/towerofbees001.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/AndrewSchwab/towerofbees002.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/AndrewSchwab/2queenshot002.jpg


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## Blue.eyed.Wolf (Oct 3, 2005)

> It will work better than even you can imagine.

Peggjam, about how often were you able to pull splits? ( I realise my actual millage may very )


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

I allowed a full brood cycle beteew splits, and provided a queen. This worked out really good. I did however find out that you don't make any splits after the first of Sept. They just didn't have time enough to build up for winter.


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