# Queen rearing and replacement using demaree



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

A handful of queen cells - I take that to mean less than 15? 

If so, use David LaFerney's / Joseph Clemens' method. It is a queenless 5- or 6-frame nucleus colony with 4 or 5 frames of emerging brood and 1 frame of pollen/nectar (open honey). David removes one comb, and replaces it with open brood for up to 4 days to get them into queen rearing mode => fervently feeding queen cells. He then replaces the open brood with his grafts (Alley / Smith / Oldtimer "Cut Cell" method works very well, as do many other methods with this small Cell Builder and a few cells).

With 40 nuc's built, he can start a small batch every 11 days, planting QC's into up to 20 nuc's for 22 days, then filling the other half of the nuc's 11 days later, all season long. This provides for LOTS OF PRACTICE 

You can devise many ways to take advantage of Michael Palmer's / Brother Adam's method - importing capped brood 10 days earlier. The more resources you have, the more royal jelly the bees can make. That is the focus of MP / BA's method. Michael Palmer imports capped brood from over-wintered nucleus colonies so as not to weaken honey production colonies for queen rearing. This makes his apiary quite sustainable. So it is a matter of scale - small apiaries can use David LaFerney / Joseph Clemens' method, those with a dozen or more strong colonies can use MP/BA's method.

In doing either of these methods, you are removing queen cells at least every 10 days, so no need to Demaree and they won't be swarming without a queen.


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## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

My method for demaree: Starting with a 2 deep winter config I put the open brood and eggs in one box, make certain the queen is in the bottom, QE, super, shim or top entrance, deep. At day 10 I open the top box, thin each of the frames to a single nice cell and place the QC and one of brood in a division of the queen castle. I try to do no more than four frames of bees. After the queen is laying (if you had 4 frames in two divisions you have 2 shots) I find and remove the original queen. I arrange the boxes now with D, news paper, second D new queen and frame of brood in the top box. Sometimes I shake out the top box in front of the hive, but mostly I shake the bees to the bottom box and put the frames in the top box. The bees will chew through the newspaper and be happy. 
If I mess up and do not get the QC out I will find open QC I place a migratory cover where the QE is. After finding new eggs in the top box I move the top box, or in your case I find and kill the queen and place newspaper where the cover was.


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## Arnie (Jan 30, 2014)

To answer your two questions specifically:
1. You don't need to separate the two boxes. With the Demaree method a queen excluder is enough. Just be sure to give them an upper entrance.
2. I wait until the new queen is laying well then I put the hive back the way it was. If you find the old queen you can dispatch her, if not the bees will work it out.


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## jeff33 (Jul 16, 2015)

kilocharlie said:


> A handful of queen cells - I take that to mean less than 15?


Yes maybe 6 maximum as I don't have enough hives to make up many nucs. I need to replace 2 queens and make 1 split so I work it out 2 QC per hive.
Thanks all for your help, some very useful info indeed.


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