Jean-Marie's description of the side-by-side 2 queen method reminded me of the "double 5 queen" hives used by Charlie Warren (Babes Honey) on Vancouver Island. He has used these for many (20?) years. One of the reasons for them is protection from bears. The arrangement consists of 5 standard Langstroth hives in contact with each other side-to-side, backed up to another 5 facing the opposite way. The 10 colonies are one one solid bottom board, and have one telescoping hive cover (the solid block of hives is the bear protection). They are managed individually until the honeyflow. The 10-hive blocks are loaded onto trucks with a hydraulic arm, and transported to mountain regions where fireweed (Epilobium) grows after logging. Each of the 10 queens gets a standard queen excluder, then the 10 hives are covered with 2 large supers (per layer), each holding 60? standard frames, 6 5/8 depth. The bees are able to move throughout 5 colonies without going outside. The large supers take 2 persons to put on, and are removed with the hydraulic arm. Apparently each colony maintains a fairly separate area, and stores honey more or less above their own brood area. If a colony is stronger, it stores in more space to either side. If a colony were to die, the space above it would still be used, if enough nectar were available and the other colonies were capable. There are more failures in self-re-queening, and probably more drift of workers, than from separate colonies. You have to work the colonies from the front, with bees all around you. The system uses special equipment of hydraulic assistance and special supers. It looked to me like a smooth working operation, and it looked like the system contributed to the operation. Kerry Clark, Apiculture Specialist B.C. Ministry of Agriculture 1201 103 Ave Dawson Creek B.C. V1G 4J2 CANADA Tel (604) 784-2225 fax (604) 784-2299 INTERNET [log in to unmask]