On Fri, 17 Jan 1997, Tom Jillette wrote:
 
> 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 overwintered 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
> overwintering).  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.
>
 Hi Tom, I have had 2 queen hives a number of times over the years. What I
have found for myself is a lot of extra work , but a hive that will winter
well and have a lot of pollen.The two queen system was used to produce a
lot of brood = very strong hive for honey production. If you have a GOOD
young queen and give her the room to lay , you will have a strong
productive hive. I have had some very prolific queens that would keep me
rotating 3 deep brood boxs. We did 360 pounds surplus with one queen. The
average in the area was about 100 pounds. When you are running a few
hives, it is easy to watch the queens handy work.Think Quality Queen.We
have a few problems that can cause the evaluation of a queen rather
difficult.If you have a queen from good disease resistant stock and not
inbred too much,you should have a strong hive that can produce a good
surplus for you.
 You should try a 2 queen system , just for your own knowledge. The
problem that you will have is congestion and with that comes swarming.Keep
your eyes open and you can see the differance between the new and old
queens laying patterns. You can learn for yourself, what a lot of people
stress on this list. Good Queens. By the way, just because a queen and
bees do well down south will not mean that they will work well up north.
Good Luck
Best Regards
 Roy