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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