# Two queen hives



## Fenc'in Bee (Apr 17, 2008)

I am looking to maximize honey production and brood production for queen rearing next year. I have been considering running several two queen hives. I am planning to take two q. excluders and space them about 3/4in apart between the two boxes. 

Are two queen hives a good way to increase honey production, or is it just more work? Is 3/4in far enough apart for the excuders or to far apart? Those who run two queen hives, how do you do it? Are there any tricks to get the bees from two hives to accept each other? (I am planning to do a newspaper combine) Do I need an upper entrance for the top hive or should the bees all use the same entrance?

Thanks for the advice.

Nevin


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## suncoast (Feb 10, 2010)

Hi Nevin, 
when are you comming down south ? Lynn is the expert on two queen hives for honey production. Call me for his number.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

Keep in mind that drones from both hives have to have a way out.

I have no idea what you are attempting to accomplish with two excluders with a 3/4 inch gap.

The two queen system that I like the best is two single deep (or jumbos) boxes, side by side. One plastic or metal (not wood bound) queen excluder covers half of each deep box. Supers are stacked above the queen excluder. A scrap piece of board covers the outer half of each brood box. The design looks like an upside down T. Bees can come and go from the regular entrances.

If you want to maximize brood production, run hives with an unlimited, unrestricted broodnest and plenty of drawn comb for the queen to lay in. Give the queen all the room to lay that she wants.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

One outfit I used to work for, two queen hives were part of our standard method of requeening. 

All hives with a queen more than a year old had a 4 frame split taken off in spring, and this was put over a division board on top of the hive, and given a queen cell. As a side effect this controlled swarming in the lower hive.

5 or so weeks later, the young queen would be mated and we would re-combine the hives. It was set up like this. The bottom box with the old queen in had 4 thicknesses of newspaper put on, and an excluder. The box with the 4 frame split was put on top of this. Two 1/2 inch thick wood chocs were put on the two front corners of the excluder, to form o door and ventialation for the top brood box. Another excluder was put on top of the top brood box and honey supers put on top of that. It is only nessecary to have one excluder between the 2 boxes.

These two queen hives would make around a box more honey over summer than the single queeners.

In fall when we were wintering down, we removed the excluders. the next spring the old queen would be gone.

So just to clarify, the hive would have a bottom box with old queen, an excluder on the bottom box with chocs to form a 2nd entrance, which was needed because these hives got very strong. The 2nd to bottom box held the young queen, an excluder on top of that and then honey supers. All boxes were deeps.


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## Fenc'in Bee (Apr 17, 2008)

Suncoast, I hope to be down for a few days in the next 2 weeks.

Countryboy, The two excluders are to separate the queens. I did not think one would be enough. One person I talked to puts two excluders together and wires them so the slots line up. Another person told me I should have a medium super between the two excluders.

On the brood production, I was planning to run at least 1 deep and 1 med for each queen.

Oldtimer, The outfit you worked for just used one excluder between the two queens? 

Thanks,
Nevin


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

Fenc'in Bee said:


> The outfit you worked for just used one excluder between the two queens?


The queens are separated by two box walls and the excluder is the ceiling of the brood nests u.der the the honey supers.










I might play with one of these this coming season.


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## RiodeLobo (Oct 11, 2010)

Novice here. 

Does running the "T" configuration get more honey that 2 separate hives? 

Thanks 
Dan


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Fenc'in Bee said:


> Oldtimer, The outfit you worked for just used one excluder between the two queens?
> 
> Thanks,
> Nevin


Yes just one excluder between queens.

When queens fight, the winner has to be in good condition to take over the hive. So they do not take little jabs at each other where both could get hurt. They wrestle for position, and this can go on for some time, until eventually one of them can make one fatal stab. They cannot do this through an excluder.
But the hives are healthy and happy, my feeling is the queens don't fight anyway they just get on with business.

BTW we didn't set hives up with boxes alongside or anything like the above pic, they were just stacked above each other as per a normal hive, no special equipment or modifications needed.

And it was not just done purely to get the extra honey, it was just the easiest way to requeen, with swarm control incorporated.


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## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

We do our 2 queeners the same way as Oldtimer works a treat.

frazz


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Cheers Frazz!

That was down well past where you are, in Leeston, with Bray & Gossett, who I don't think exist any more. I started work there fresh from school, and my teacher was Jasper Bray, a tough old guy who demanded hard work & high standards. Did you know him?

Anyhow I'm glad that's how my beekeeping career started it was a great education.


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## probee (Dec 31, 2009)

Fenc'in Bee said:


> I am planning to take two q. excluders and space them about 3/4in apart between the two boxes.


Some time the ¾ not enough.
I'm using a honey super between 2 Q. excluders (queens are not wasting time, truing to keel each other thru 3/4 distance)
Top entrance is good too.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

If one side goes queenless will it raise a new queen if you give it eggs? Im guessing they would but not always. 

I also like the idea of the side by side hives when it comes time to wrap them for winter and shared heat.

Any tips for when you inspect the twin colonies? Do you just use smoke on excluder to convince yourself queens will run down?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Can't answer for the side by side version cos i never did it but the way we did it if one went queenless they would not raise a new queen. However that almost never happened.

How to inspect them? We didn't. They were set up in time for the honey flow, after that there was nothing to do other than add boxes. End of season honey was removed, then after that the hives were wintered down.

A comment on the side by side one pictured, personally I don't see the point. There is 4 brood boxes, might as well just have 2 hives, it is not achieving anything. To be economically viable, that thing would have to be stacked with so many honey boxes production would be lost because the bees would have to cart it too far.
Side by side with one brood box per side, well maybe. But I guess I'd prefer the straight up system I'm used too. Which gets the benefit of the production of two queens, with the equipment and management of only one hive. AND, requeening is done, and swarming is controlled.


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## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

In my experience I dont see that the Queens waste any time trying to kill each other they seem to stay focused on egg laying.
I have never noticed any reduction or spottiness in the brood pattern which you would expect if Queens were "wasting time trying to kill each other"

When we two queen a hive we keep the old queen in the bottom in a single deep then an excluder goes on then a honey box then a splitboard with a chock to make an entrance.
The top split has lots of bees shaken into it from the bottom box because it will lose most of the bees back to the bottom and we need lots of young bees to raise the queen.
If we are putting a queen cell in we have the entrance at the back of the hive the reason being that hopefully the returning newly mated queen won't stray into the bottom queenright box by mistake.
If it's a caged queen the entrance is at the front.

Once the new queens own brood starts to hatch we replace the split board with an excluder and then unite with either paper or a few squirts of air freshener usually it's air freshener because we have hundreds of hives to get through and it's fast and affective.

So now we have old queen in bottom single deep, excluder, honeybox, excluder with chocks for an entrance, new queen in single deep.

Once they've been united they go out to kiwifruit pollination for around 10 days to 2 weeks.

After the kiwis we take the honey box from the middle and bring it to the top of the hive so now we have,
old queen bottom in single deep, excluder with chocks for entrance, new queen in single deep, excluder then honey box.

After the flow the honeybox's are taken off the excluder is removed and they are wintered over as double deeps with the new queen from that season going through the winter to become the older queen next season when we repeat the process.

This way you use only one lid and one bottom board

This system of Two queening is pretty much the accepted way to do it here in New Zealand. 

In our experience it will give you 1 more box of honey than a single queen in a double deep.

frazz


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## Lauren (Jun 10, 2010)

So Oldtimer, do you _have_ to have the upper excluder in your system? Or could you let the younger queen lay a bit larger area if she wanted? Did you also put the entrance backward to make sure the newly mated Queen didn't come home to the wrong doorstep like Fraz did?

And Fraz, it seems like the major difference between yours and Oldtimers method is that you have the honey super in the middle of the two boxes? 
(mind you, I haven't had my first cup of coffee yet...  ) Is that for easier manipulation, adding boxes etc. or so that the foragers can get to the storage just as easily from both sides?

Could you just drill entrance holes instead of chocks? 

This sounds like a great method to try. But would it be tough to do frequent checks on the bottom queen for beetles, moths etc?


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## papar (Apr 10, 2007)

frazz/oldtimer- do you have any issues with swarming? Especially from the old queen in the lower brood box? It seems that if she were confined to one single deep that she would feel crowded during peak brood production. Do you concern your self with checking for Q cells or just let them do what they will?
I guess if you do have a swarm from the older queen you just combine hives and you're back in business- i get that but just curious about the frequency of swarming?

thanks


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

Frazz I am not familiar with using air freshener for combining hives. Is this a product you purchase or one you mix yourself.

Thanks


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Lauren said:


> So Oldtimer, do you _have_ to have the upper excluder in your system? Or could you let the younger queen lay a bit larger area if she wanted? Did you also put the entrance backward to make sure the newly mated Queen didn't come home to the wrong doorstep like Fraz did?


You don't HAVE to have the top excluder. But lighter coloured honey was worth more so we always did. In our case we had the entrance to the top unit at the front, but I omitted to say that, like Frazz, we put a honey box over the bottom unit, and then the top unit, so there was a two box distance between the two doors during the time the queen was mating. Then when the hive was combined the top brood box was put directly on top of the bottom one, and honey supers on top of that.

Looks like Frazzes method and mine are the same, other than a couple of slight twists.



Lauren said:


> But would it be tough to do frequent checks on the bottom queen for beetles, moths etc?


No checks done, these hives are simply too strong for moths, and we don't have beetles.






papar said:


> frazz/oldtimer- do you have any issues with swarming?


In the area wher I did this, and i think Frazz's area will be somewhat similar no swarming issues at all, we timed it so the whole thing came together just as the main flow started, and once the main flow started swarming stopped.
But where I am now, the weather is warmer and more humid, and there's always some kind of flow even through winter. I've tried the two queen method here but given up on it because swarming is almost inevitable if it's used. It's one of those interesting things in beekeeping, something that works brilliantly in one climate, can be totally wrong in another.


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## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

When we do the split we put a honey box on the bottom unit purely to give it space all the rest is the same as what Oldtimer said.

Re the airfreshener it's just a store bought toilet spray type thing. You know the ones in a pressurised can that you spray I'm sure there's a better way of describing it!

We give a short burst into the bottom box and the same in the top box I'm guessing it makes both colonies of bees smell the same so neither identify the other as foreign.

Just on that thing about combining hives we have found that if you combine three or more seperate colonies of bees there's no fighting but if combining just 2 thats when we see fighting and use air freshener.

Frazz


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Oldtimer said:


> ..., requeening is done, and swarming is controlled.


How does this control swarming?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

DLF, where we used this method, ( New Zealand Canterbury Plains), the bees went though a hard winter and some of that with no brood. Then brood production would start and the colony, with our encouragement, would build up rapidly to get a peak population in time for the start of the flow. But right when they might be starting to think about swarming, a 4 frame split is taken off the hive & a box added to the bottom unit, (as per Frazzes description). With the timing of colony build up, and flow in this area, doing this reduced swarming to virtually nil.

As previously stated though, in the area I'm in now, this method does not stop swarming. It does at the time it's done, but swarming will happen a couple of months later when the two queener has reached big strength. The are I'm in now is warmer with some kind of flow most of the time. The bees are happy to send out a swarm just about any time of late spring through to fall. But the harsher winter in our more Southern parts, encourages bees not to swarm once the flow has started but just focus on storing a crop.

Can't speak for Frazzes area I haven't worked there but the system obviously works well for him. Got to say he must be pretty well organised to do this plus work it in with kiwi pollination, just shows how a skilled beekeeper can develop a timetable based around local knowledge to maximize returns, he'd have to be running a pretty tight ship at that time of year.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I've been playing with them off and on for years, but I can't say I think they are that great. They are a lot of work. The easiest method is simply split the brood nest with an excluder and they usually raise a queen on the other side of it (assuming a top and bottom entrance of course for drones).

If you want a more purposeful hive, I like a long box on the bottom with a stack of supers in the middle:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beestwoqueenhive.htm


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well your article starts out by saying "I will preface this with the fact that I've done this and think it is USUALLY easier to just run two one queen hives."
Can't be that purposeful if it's easier not to do it.

The method I've described (different to yours) is purposeful, and profitable. The purpose is correct population build up, swarm control, and requeening, all rolled into one, plus the extra honey production.

Considering all things, the idea was to try to balance out the most honey / least amount of work / least amount of equipment. Yes, it's more work than some easier, but less profitable methods.

I've yet to see a long hive that's worth doing. Maybe for fun, but not to make money.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

Old Timer

As I was reading I was thinking being that you did not inspect your two queeners that you were missing swarms but Im glad you followed up to point out that that was specific to an area. There is no way I could keep a two queen colony from swarming with only one box of brood each. Last season they wanted to swarm from mid April though September here. So given that case dont you think a beek would be better off using a double wide brood chamber?

I made two five frame nucs from strong colonies last april and they still swarmed on me in May. I also dont use queen excluders so queens can do what they want.


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## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

For any commercial beekeeper doing pollination and/or honey a long box just wouldn't work.

In any beekeeping outfit their are a hundred different ways to beekeep it's just a case of taking the tips you would like to try and giving it a go, so will work some wont.

Until recently we had always kept our two queeners as two queeners on the honey flow, whereas the beekeeper down the road always put singles into honey we would actually scoff at him between ourselves thinking what the hang hows he going to do honey with such small hives.

Well we now know just how much honey singles make! and our management has changed in that we always split our two queeners off into seperate 1 box hives. a good two queener will give you 4 boxs of honey a good single will give you 3/4 boxs of honey so we almost double the crop.

That being said our area is not a huge honey producer it's more a sustained flow rather than a short strong flow.

In fact you can even get 2 boxs of honey from a single 3/4 hive if it has a new queen and is good and strong.

frazz


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## Lauren (Jun 10, 2010)

So, fraz what you are saying is that you do start with the two queen system and the as the flow approaches you switch to singles? 

I was thinking that the pulling of the frames and addition of the new queen was right as the flow was approaching to prevent swarming?? :s

Anyhow, I am very much enjoying learning all of the diverse ways that bees can be kept and worked. Amazing.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Frazz what do you do at seasons end? Re combine for winter?


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

Frazz

From my limited experience with 2 queens, I'd say that singles produce similar amounts of honey as 2 queens in my area. A beekeeper I knew used to run 2 queens and usually he got good crops but no better than the best singles and they were a lot more work.

First year he kept bees around here he averaged 300 lbs. However, it was an incredible year and a lot of other beekeepers had fantastic averages as well. If fact the beekeeper I was working for ended up averaging slightly over 300 lbs as well using singles.


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## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

Lauren the split is made about a month before the flow which is the time that our hives are starting to think about swarming for us it's around mid October with the hives going out on honey from late November thru to late December with our main flow being Late December through to mid February.

Oldtimer we usually winter the singles over as singles we have found that after taking the honey crop off the bees have enogh time to gather winter stores, usually honeydew by having them in singles they pack out the brood nest with honey which limits the space the queen has to lay which limits the amount of brood and bees over the winter months kepping the hive very compact with stores close to the bees and no problems with mice in the bottom box that we tend to get with double brood hives.

In early spring when we do our first inspection we combine the hives again and keep them as doubles throughout the pollination period.

We also run alot of singles divided into 3 seperate compartments of 3 frames each. we use these for queen raising and when we are done we pull the slides leaving one queen in, chuck an excluder and honey box on it and it's good to go into honey.

frazz


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

WI-beek said:


> Old Timer
> 
> As I was reading I was thinking being that you did not inspect your two queeners that you were missing swarms but Im glad you followed up to point out that that was specific to an area. There is no way I could keep a two queen colony from swarming with only one box of brood each. Last season they wanted to swarm from mid April though September here. So given that case dont you think a beek would be better off using a double wide brood chamber?
> 
> I made two five frame nucs from strong colonies last april and they still swarmed on me in May. I also dont use queen excluders so queens can do what they want.


Hi WI Beek, sounds like your area is a bit like where I am now, can't do two queening here the hive is guaranteed to swarm eventually. the two queen configuration I described is best suited to an area with a severe winter, followed by a defined flow, and the management should be timed to get peak bee population just after the flow starts, plus disrupt pre-flow swarming.

Frazzes post about splitting a two queener down to two single brood box hives was interesting, such a method may work well where you are if not done too early & inducing swarming. As well as just pure numbers of bees, other factors are moral, drive, and desire to store a particular amount of honey, which will all shape the best hive configuration for our particular area.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

Hey Old Timer

From what I put together from beeks that have been around awhile here is that this last season was just one of those years that they wanted to swarm. We had and unusually warm spring, flow hit as soon as it was warm enough for the girls to fly and they were bringing in pollen by the bucket. They started swarming two or three weeks ahead of normal and my flow never really stoped other than two or three weeks through the summer until fall hit. Then it dried up for a couple weeks then I had a bit of a golden rod flow but others reported not much from it. All I know is it seemed like every single colony wanted to swarm at least once. I know thats not normal though. Then I have another yard about 5 miles away and almost every nectar and pollen source is different other than blackberries and raspberries.

I think Ill end up trying a double twin deep colony or two this summer. I know single deeps are not enough for brood and four deep and six suppers is just to tall for me.

Gotta have bees left to do anything so guess we will see what spring brings.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I've done all of the following:

A 12 frame deep box split down the center vertically. Two 12 frame deeps split vertically. One Dadant deep split vertically. One deep with an excluder on top of it a shallow, another excluder and another deep with a queen in each deep. A long hive with a queen on either end and a stack of supers in the middle. A hive with simply one excluder splitting the brood nest. If you don't worry too much about whether any given hive is or is not double queened and you minimize management, then just putting an excluder in to split the brood nest works most of the time with minimal effort and fairly good results. If you want to do a lot of management to maximize results and to insure you have two queens, then the long hive with the stack of supers in the center works better. Other than splitting the brood nest with just one excluder and letting them raise a queen (or putting a cell in one or both halves) I think the rest are too much work. Also the population of bees, for a beginner, can be quite intimidating.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I think splitting hives vertically in the way you describe is overly complex and will not get the results you seek, plus needs special equipment. Likewise long hives. Will blow out the work / reward ratio. Forget all that.

The other ways you suggest, DO worry about if you have a queen in each, otherwise whatever work you've put in is wasted, you get nothing for it. You'll need to understand timing & flows in your area, and then if a two queen system is even viable in your area. In other words if you work on it instead of a plethora of methods, you find the one method that you can standardise because it works best, and you'll probably find then that it's worth it time wise. It may involve breaking hives down to singles later, or whatever variant works. But it is possible that for you something will work. We should see it as streamlining our system, outperforming our competitors.

Don't just leave it to the bees to raise a queen. This just wastes the hives time and productive potential plus you are breeding from whatever old bee that they are. We should be breeding towards desirable characteristics and this means selecting breeders and raising cells. If it's a small and less experienced person then maybe, but really this is pretty loose and in the end the results are going to be questionable.

I guess in some ways, two queening might fall under the "advanced" category, but that does not mean a beginner cannot do it. With proper instruction a beginner can certainly do it, and heck you don't even have to find the old queen to requeen the hive. At its simplest, an excluder can be placed between the brood boxes. 5 days later see which box has eggs and use the other to put over a division board and put the cell / new queen in.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Wi-beek wrote:

I know single deeps are not enough for brood

We run single deep brood chambers, and can get 16 frames with brood on them. How is that not enough? 

We on ocasion use 2 queen hives, but ussually as a result of the loss of the queen in a single. The hatching brood is split into 2 brood chambers, with supers and excluders in between. Two cells are provided, one up, one down. If one fails, you run with the other. If both prosper, the top brood chamber is left in place untill the population(of both) catches to that of the rest of the yard, then the top brood chamber is removed and given it's own hive stand. The field bees will return to the original hive, and help with the "catch up". 

Roland


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

Old timer

You hit the nail on the head with the work/reward ratio. Many configurations and manipulations do produce the maximum crop per unit but fail miserably with respect to the ratio. The best configuration I've seen is the 4 queen system one pallet; can produce an incredible crop. 

Roland 

We use a similar system at times, but will often balance a bit after 5 days, add a frame of young larvae to the queenless, move it to a new location and add a mated queen. Queen acceptance can be a problem if no flow is on with this method. Nice thing about this system is it buys time if we are falling behind in splitting and greatly reduces the chance of a swarm being thrown.


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## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

Roland said:


> Wi-beek wrote:
> 
> we run single deep brood chambers, and can get 16 frames with brood on them. How is that not enough?
> 
> ...


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Yes, up and down(hatched or hatching). We do not see the swarming issues that others talk about, even with the lot of Cardovans we had once. Got some NWC last summer that may test us. 

Roland.


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## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

how do you run your hives that way roland such as how many frames are you moving how often and when do you stop moving them? Nick


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Swarmtrapper - we are off topic but..... As many as they will alllow. Knowing what they will cover is the tough part. We ussually stop when the flow starts.

Out of repect to the originator if this thread, PM me if you need to know more.

Roland


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

Roland said:


> Wi-beek wrote:
> 
> I know single deeps are not enough for brood
> 
> ...


Im confused. How do you get 16 frames in one deep?


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

The area the queen occupies is defined as the brood chamber. Not all of the brood is in the space that the queen occupies. PM me so that we don't hijack this thread.

Roland


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## bfriendly (Jun 14, 2009)

Roland, can you please post about your management in a new thread instead of pm. I think others would be interested.

Sorry to go further off topic but ...I am very curious:
-how many hives do you manage this way
-how much time involved, how frequently are you in these hives?
-how many frames of eggs/brood do you pull up (average inspection) and how often do you find is ideal to repeat?


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

I second that. The thread is 2 queen hives, you aren't off topic.


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## Fenc'in Bee (Apr 17, 2008)

Roland, I would be interested in hearing how you manage the brood nest also. Could you start another post with your management of the brood.

Thanks,
Nevin


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