Has anyone considered or tried using a 2 queen system with the flow frames in the middle of two deep brood boxes (one below and one above with queen excluders keeping them in their respective brood box)? Could harvest frequently rather than ending up with an extremely tall vertical stack which is a drawback of a traditional 2 queen system.
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I am currently running two queens split vertically in a 10 frame Langstroth box with a 7 frame Flow super on top. The problem with running a twin queen setup with the Flow super between brood boxes is that bees generally don’t like storing the honey below the brood so your top brood box will likely start storing honey above the brood and reduce laying space (although I am keen to see someone put the effort in to try it).
Not sure what ‘traditional’ 2 queen system you are referring to with regards to tall vertical stack, but my configuration is smaller than your suggestion.
Showing the split in the brood box:
Hive with Flow super above brood (Ideal box is used as a spacer because the center Flow frame was sitting on the splitter)
A modified excluder provides the separation
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Hi @RBK, does this work? I’d like to know more please. Like how come there is no fighting? Cheers, Paul
It’s working for me, they were introduced using the paper method, at which point they chewed through and didn’t have any issues (took several days). I believe both swarms were from the same hive, but I’m not convinced this is critical.
I have checked since installing both and identified both queens but haven’t done again recently (ie. since Flow went on) because it’s a little tedious.
One of the issues is managing the brood box because you need to cover it in halves when working each side.
I was keen to try what @Indiana was describing but in a horizontal hive with the super in between, just haven’t got there yet.
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I think I will try with a horizontal hive divided into two sections this spring.