Laurence Edwards inspects a double-brood colony and adds two supers early to prevent swarming. He explains the Demaree technique: moving the lower brood box above the top box with fresh foundation below, which mimics a swarm cue and controls expansion without splits.
Right, it's been a couple of weeks now since I last checked up on this colony. They hadn't moved up into that top box the last time I checked, but looking at them now, they're coming out. Not the friendliest colony, this one, and they really have grown in size. So let's take a look, see how much this colony has grown, see what's next in terms of a manipulation to stop these bees from swarming. So we're still on our double brood configuration. I've got my 14 by 12 at the bottom, and then that top box there, they have well and truly moved up into that top box now. Covering maybe 5, 6, even 7 frames, drawing it all out. I'm going to pull out a couple of those frames now just to show you how well they've been drawing that out. And I think we're in a position now to add 2 supers to this colony. I know that seems a little bit extreme. I've still got frames over here that they've not drawn out, but the weather's getting better. What we're trying to do with this colony here is mitigate any swarming. There is no chance this colony is going to get to a point in the season where they have not got a sufficient amount of space to expand into. That doesn't mean that we completely mitigate swarming just by giving them space, but it means that we completely mitigate the aspect of them leaving due to not having enough space. So a real mix up in the frames. This frame here, completely drawn out, loads of nice stores going in there, starting to cap those over on some of the other frames. And then this one here, they put a nice big patch of drone brood in there, and then the queen's laid up loads of eggs all around here. So I've got about six or seven frames drawn in that top box now. I'm going to do a quick inspection on this colony now just to double check that there's no swarm cells. That's really important all the way throughout this. Every time I'm here, every seven days, I'm doing a full inspection. Don't want to miss any of those cells. And then what we're going to do with this colony is we're going to add on two supers. So it never works like that, does it? Queen is right there, complete center of the frame. First frame I pulled out. Can't see any cells on this frame here. I'm going to make a little bit of space, get it off to one side, quickly go through all. of the rest of the frames, flash them down, make sure there's no cells, and we'll put everything back together again. Always great when you find the queen on the first frame because it means you can just shake the bees off every other frame. Makes it really easy to spot the cells, makes it so much quicker as well. For anybody who watched the video on what to do with capped stores, this is the frame. Check that one out, Frame S. They have turned that into a beautiful frame full of brood, both sides. Really happy with that. You can repeat the process if you want. Don't do it when you're adding your supers on though. Right, so we've been through the whole brood box now. 8 frames full of 14 by 12, absolutely loads of bees on there. This is why I hate national lugs, because I just shook that one and it broke off. How annoying is that? But no cells in there whatsoever. I've seen the queen, loads of eggs, looking good. So what I'm gonna do with this box now, now that the bees are well and truly up into this box, is I'm gonna checkerboard it a little bit, get the additional frames of foundation into the middle, get them drawn out, And then we're going to go straight on top with some supers as well, make sure the bees have got no chance of running out of space. So I'm just taking out the frames of foundation at the edge of this top box, and I'm just going to intersperse them into the middle where they've already drawn it out. Right, tripped over a strap there. What a nightmare. So we've checkerboarded the top box, we've done a full inspection. Now I'm going to add 2 supers. And remember, we're not using a queen excluder on this colony. Gonna get boring me saying this, but what we're trying to do with this colony is for them to not swarm. So I don't want any restriction on the side of the brood nest. This is going to be a big brood nest, and we're going to add 2 supers at once, give the bees loads of space. So there we go, we've added the 2 supers on. Might seem a little bit crazy, but there is some method to the madness. The next step that we're going to do here, want those bees to fill 2 supers, and then I'm going to lift one of the bottom brood boxes up above the top Do a demeray and replace a new box full of foundation underneath. I want to get to the point where they fill these boxes quickly because I want to maintain some space between the top box and the original brood nest. That's how a demeray works. You get that space between where you're flipping that brood up to the top and the original nest below. They'll draw out the cells and they think they've swarmed. It's a good trick, works most of the time. That's what's next for this colony. They're doing really well. Fantastic update here today because the last time they really hadn't made much progress, and now we're seeing massive, massive gains in the last couple of weeks. So fast forward a few weeks, hopefully the bees are up here in the super gathering some honey, not drawing too much brood up here.
