In the two queen colonies I have run, I use two queen excluders, one on top
of the other, between the hive bodies.  Does one queen excluder keep the
queens from getting to one another?
 
 
At 08:42 AM 4/26/96 GMT, you wrote:
>Hi All
>
>I read the post the other day about the 2 queen hive setup for build up and
>decided to try it for a different purpose.  I thought if this works it might
>be an easy way to requeen without losing egg laying time.  I have a colony
>that has not built up properly and had some chalk brood problems.  The
>colony had gotten up to 3 frames of brood but did not gain any ground for
>over three weeks.
>
>I took 1 frame of emerging brood and moved it above a double screen and a
>super with some old brood combs and left them an opening of about 1" by
>3/8".  I waited about 8 hours and introduced a new queen with a hole punched
>through the candy.  I checked the top hive body 3 days later and found that
>the new queen  had been accepted and was laying.  Now here is where I got
>into trouble.  I understood that the double screen should be replaced with a
>queen excluder after the new queen had been accepted.  I allowed the queen
>to lay for 2 more days before doing this.  It was almost disaster.  There
>was a real bee killing going on when I looked at the hive a few hours later.
>My solution was to place newspaper between on top of the queen excluder just
>like combining 2 swarms.  That was 2 days ago and when I checked today they
>had cut through the paper and appeared to coexist quite happily.
>
>The outcome is still in question but if anyone has tried something like this
>before and can tell me of further pitfall I need to watch for , I would
>appreciate it.  The new queen has 3 frames of eggs already.  This seems a
>bit much considering the number of nurse bees she has to work with.  Maybe
>the rising heat from below makes this possible.  What I plan to do is allow
>both queens to lay until they have 8 frames of brood and then remove the old
>queen and the queen excluder.
>
>I have a colony that has a 3 year old queen that I would like to move to a
>Nuc and use her for a breeder.  I had thought to do this after the honey
>flow but she is slowing down and I want to replace her without losing egg
>laying time.  If this works for the weak colony I am going to try it this
>strong healthy colony.
>
>I would welcome comments and suggestions.
>
>Frank Humphrey
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