>>There seems to be some discrepancy in what I am reading here on BEE-L andwhat I saw Walt do in our demonstration.   He manipulated no brood frames within the brood chamber.  He only checkerboarded supers above the cluster.

Right.  The checkerboarding of the broodnest I described is unrelated to the checkerboarding Walt does.  Checkerboarding the broodnest allows a much faster buildp.  I took a package on foundation and built it up this way for honey and extra colonies.  In one season, using this one package, I ended up with two extra colonies (a total of three) and 2 mediums of honey on the original colony.  Results will vary but a much faster build-up will occur in good conditions.

There were studies reported out of Serbia on Bee-L that gave specific % increase figures over control colonies.

Checkerboarding the honey section and the broodnest both take advantage of the bees' drive for a continuous hive.

Waldemar

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