>Greetings to everyone.
>I'm interested in running a few colonies this coming season with two queens
>and would like to hear any comments from those who have tried this method.
>It sounds to me like a reasonable way to split an over wintered colony and
>build the two halves up together, working on the same honey supers as one
>big hive and then separating them later to put away for winter.  (The Hive
>and Honey Bee suggests combining them again with the younger queen for
>winter, which I can see would give a very strong colony with young queen for
>over wintering).  I can see with this method, there would be more work
>involved in hive checks and honey removal as well.
>
>Any tips, comments or experiences with this method?
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Tom
>(...going into my third year beekeeping)
 
Hi Tom,
 
I have been running my hives on the two-queen system for a number of years
now and I would never switch back to a single queen colony for honey
production.  I live in Ohio and split my hives around the 1st of May.
Putting the split with a new queen on top of the parent hive.  These two
build up together with the parent colony looking like a regular single
queen colony and the split building up to a deep and a medium by the honey
flow (mid June), both overflowing with bees.  When the honey flow starts I
go around and combine the two units (or take a split out of the parent hive
to replace winter loses or to increase).  I arrange the brood boxes so that
the young brood is on the bottom and the sealed brood is on the top of the
brood nest, with any supers put on top of the brood nest.  After that I
just add and add supers until I run out of supers or it's time to pull the
honey.  I rarely ever look at these hives after I combine them, maybe one
or two per yard to get an idea of what's going on.  These hives produce an
average of 5 to 6 medium supers (to be conservative, the range is 4 to
10+).  I have never seen one of these hives swarm, they just produce pound
after pound of honey.  By fall they are the size of a really strong single
queen hive, with more honey stored for winter and normally twice the amount
of pollen stored.  They are over wintered in 3 deep hive bodies.  And come
out of the winter with huge populations, ready to be split when you can get
the queens.
 
A side note.  I do use Instrumental Insemination to control my breeding
stock.  So, I may be selecting bees that do better with the two queen
system.
 
Garrett
 
 
*****************
Garrett Dodds
Custom Inseminations
29480 January Rd.
West Mansfield, OH  43358
(937) 355-0290
e-mail  [log in to unmask]
 
***********************
* Garrett Dodds                         *
* 29480 January Road              *
* West Mansfield, OH  43358  *
* (937) 355-0290                 *
* e-mail  [log in to unmask]    *
*--------------------------*
* Custom Inseminations          *
********************