>To check frequently, ie. each weekend to 10 days, to see if the green drone 
>frame is capped in the bottom box, and avoid a bad back, I follow a 
>procedure developed accidently while trying to achieve successful combined 
>side by side ( horizontal ) two queen hives. The queens are in side by side 
>single bottom boxes. Both have a green drone brood frame. On top of the 
>boxes with queens above an excluder, are the honey supers, half over one 
>queen's brood box and half over the over. A four frame nuc box top lid serves 
>as a top cover of the bottom boxes where the bottom boxes are not covered 
>by ascending honey supers.

Thanks for that Malcolm.  I had never realised how this system would allow 
working in the brood boxes while the supers are on the hive.

I've seen it practised, but never tried it.  Do you find that you get more 
production than with one queen?

I know that these hives winter very well due to the greater populations, and 
greater genetic mix in the worker population.

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm