Hello Jean-Marie! I say you had information on a French book on
multiple-queen management or 2-queen beekeeping.
Is that by chance the same book which translated is THE SKYSCRAPER HIVE...?
I have seen a copy of that book, though I don't recall the author. It is
fairly old, if I'm thinking of the right one. The idea in that book was to
have three or even four (or more?) brood nests stacked up, and to utilize
the egg laying of one queen in each. Then (I think) you pull the
separations just before the honey flow, and have a massive colony all
working together.
I ran about 15 double-queen units for comb honey (sections) some time back,
and it worked very well. If you're interested, following is a description.
Quick anecdote: When I was a kid growing up north of Boston, there was a
guy in the local bee club who had big rousing 2-queen colonies in his
suburban backyard. In fact he ran them all on 2 queens every season. He
maybe had 7 or 8 colonies set up this way, and they were very tall! Later
I found out his reason for the 2-queen system -- his wife would only let
him have that many colonies, so to make up for it, he doubled them up!
Nice going, I figure!
I'd like to hear of others' experience with two queen plans. It seems one
of the tricks to it is to keep the bees from rejecting one of the queens
upon uniting. If both units are strong, and both queens vigorous, it is
not a frequent problem (IME). Let me add that the honey flow here usually
lasts into late July at least, followed by a fall flow beginning late
August.
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2 queens for section comb honey--
We overwinter in 2 brood chambers here; the upper one is mostly full of
honey at the start of winter.
In spring I would divide up the brood and bees and place a separation
(board or screen, with upper entrance) between the two stories. A queen
was then introduced to the upper story (the older queen being in the lower
unit). The lower colony would get an extracting super if needed, and the
upper was fed sugar syrup if honey was not available.
Then, about 5 weeks later, the separating board was removed and replaced
with a queen excluder covered by newspaper. Then, supers were added atop
the two brood chambers. Both queens would keep laying throughout the
summer, and the large colonies did wonderful work in the sections. The
supers sometimes got as high as 8 or 9, and they finished them very fast.
(After all, there's not a whole lot of room in a section super.)
The upper brood nest was established with a rear entrance, and once the
colonies were joined (excluder between) for the honey flow, the upper unit
still had its own entrance. This was made by pushing the box forward
enough on the excluder to leave a 3/8" gap in the back. Then a piece of
lath was tacked slightly above it to shelter the opening. It was really
something to see the large volume of foragers coming and going from front
and back at the same time. They continued the use of both entrances all
season.
I preferred this plan to the customary method of crowding all the bees from
2 brood chambers down into one at the beginning of the honey flow. That
can be somewhat counterproductive, as the colony gets very congested and
slows down, in preparation to swarm. Then you have a new set of problems.
With such strong colonies by using 2 queens, one per brood chamber, the
colonies by themselves were strong enough to push work up into the sections
without my crowding them.
In autumn I would just remove the queen excluder and let the bees fill the
upper brood chamber with stores for winter. The colonies going into winter
were of course very strong, so it worked out pretty well all 'round.
Have you experimented with multiple queens as well? I know that others
have had consistent success with more conventional comb honey management,
but the 2-queen thing worked well for me. Without a great deal of labor I
was able to get quality sections, keep the colonies strong, and re-queen
all together.
Best regards, -- JWG
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