Demaree Split/Pheromones

Beekeeping - Basics
1

Good afternoon, I am hoping someone can satisfy my curiosity. This is my first spring as a beekeeper, I went into my hive a couple of weeks ago to find swarm cells. I am not in the position at this moment to have two hives and as hives cannot be moved/sold in NSW decided to do a Demaree split.

I removed the swarm cells, put a new box on the bottom with a couple of brood frames, Queen and filled the rest with wax frames. I then put on the queen excluder, the flow super and the original brood box on top and filled the two empty spots with blank frames. A week later I went through the top box and removed all queen cells. It all seems to have worked and thus far they have not swarmed.

I do have a question though that I cannot seem to find the answer to. If the bees in the top box are far enough away from the queen they no longer recognize her, I am assuming the same applies in reverse. If this is the case how do the bees in the top box travel through the bottom brood box to exit the hive without the other bees attacking them? I assume they will appear as strangers to the bees in the bottom box.

2

The bees will all have the odor that is unique to that colony, so therefore there will be no fighting.

PS Welcome to the forum.

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3

Ah of course. I was focussed on the Queen pheromone being the main factor & thinking they would be treated like robber bees.

Thank you so much for your response & the welcome.

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4

What did you do with the top brood box after 25 days and brood had all emerged? Did it fill with honey in preference to flow super? did you remove it? or change its position. I’m planning a demaree this year with a Flow super, I’m using 14 x 12 brood boxes and really don’t want one full of honey although could easily be kept as winter resources after the 25 days. Interested to here how you’re demaree worked out. Never worry if to far from event. Did you do it again? Cheers Hokanui

5

Mine did fill with honey as the brood hatched the bees backfilled it. I am still trying to work out how to get the bees to move it into a super , any ideas ??

6

Hi Richard welcome to the forum.
Jeff asked me to ask you, is " a super" a flow or traditional super?.
Regardless, remove two frames, from the middle, and replace them, with the two outer frames from the brood box. ( If they are full of honey).
Then move the brood frames to the out side and put two frames, with fresh foundation in the spaces in a checker board fashion.
Wilma,