John I. wrote:
 
...> two queens in one colony separated by a double
>screen but not for the purposes of increased honey production. Yes,
>this is a horse of a different color, on second thought.
 
Sounds similar to the piggy-back arrangement comprising a 2-Q colony, up to
the time the screen is pulled or replaced by an excluder.  If you were to
pull the dbl. screen after a month or so, and put an excluder there, with a
sheet of newspaper and an entrance notch where the upper unit's entrance
was before, the colonies will "unite" and continue working with both
queens.  There are always some stinkers, but this has worked well *almost
all the time for me.  It was very effective for section honey over a double
brood nest (w/one queen in each brood nest).  Usually both queens would
continue laying right through the summer, and the excluders would be pulled
at the start of the fall season, returning the colony to single-queen
status for wintering.
 
>(2) Geo starts feeding 1-1 sugar syrup in early Feb. I start in November
>and continue until the honeyflow is imminent, when the tulip poplar
>(Liriodendron tulipifera) and black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia)
>begin to bloom about May 1 and are done by the first week in June.
>I'm usually extracting by the ides of June: to leave it on longer
>I have found that the bees start to consume it!
 
So I guess John's bees do fine with syrup on all winter(?).  In a more
harsh winter I've had much better luck with dry sugar, if a colony goes
through their stored honey too soon.  I have been able to carry needy
colonies from Feb. right through to May on it.  Syrup dripping down on the
cluster can be disastrous, and they seem reluctant to take freezing cold
syrup anyway, IME.  Perhaps there is not a good fall flow in MD for the
bees to sock away the winter stores.
 
We don't get the tulip poplar in NY but I've been told it is delectable.
Most years the black locust is a major source.  Two summers ago it seemed
to bloom for weeks on end, and the crop was wonderful.  An ensuing dearth
in some areas can cause the bees to start eating it up, so getting it
harvested in a timely fashion is a challenge in itself.  Must be nice to
have all the extracting done mid-June, John; by then I'm sure your
customers are lining up, too!
 
Rgds,
JG