Hello Tim & All,
I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish. I believe you are in
northern California. Increase brood production or raise a queen up.

Our bees in California did not start brooding up last year until the days
started getting longer no matter how we tried to stimulate  the bees with
feeding. Plenty of fresh pollen were in the hives.

 The California beekeepers say feeding pollen paddies before the days start
getting longer is a waste of time and money. Could be trying to get the bees
to brood up and raise a queen also. Dunno!

In warm weather in Florida we can trick the bees into brooding up many times
but certain times of the year they simply store syrup and the queens do not
lay eggs.

The time of year (late December) and the cold nights I  doubt you are going
to be able to convince the bees spring has sprung but I could be wrong and
maybe a California beekeeper will share his/her experience.

Murray outlined the procedure he uses and I have done the same but I have
not used the method with the type of night temps you are talking about.

I can not speak for Murray but the only time I let bees raise their own
queens is after swarming or supercedure.

I either use queens from a queen breeder, queens I raised from cells I
grafted and mated or if pressed for time cells grafted by me and finished in
a finisher colony.

Putting brood up to prevent swarming for the bees to care for and putting
the queen down with enough unsealed brood to keep bees around her and giving
her plenty of comb to lay in is a method which my grandpa used.

The method Murray described is a variation of the "Demaree" method named
after George Demaree who first described the process in an article in the
American Bee journal in 1884 (with an updated version in 1892)..

When the the bees emerge in the moved up brood comb the bees fill the cells
above with nectar. The problem is today that once a chemical strip has been
used in the brood chamber for a time (10 years plus) in many U.S. operations
using the deep brood comb for honey storage is a risky business. Especially
if coumaphos has been used as high amounts of coumaphos is being detected in
beeswax in brood comb in hives which have had coumaphos used for several
years (Jeff Pettis , Beltsville Bee Lab).

Bees today do not always do what is expected of them.  In below freezing
weather as you describe the bees might move up through the excluder to join
the cluster above and leave the queen stranded below.

I hope I have helped you understand the method better.

Bob

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