BLM and Demareeing Magic

Big Leaf Maple seems to still have some time left- and I'm wishing I had the hives I had years previous- as the weather has been perfect- nearly every day with bees flying. But now I'm down to 20, and some of those aren't great. Though mathematically, I bet its a perfect Bell Curve. What in life isn't?

One intense hive has two full supers of Maple, and a massive amount of bees- but  others of course,  just seem like slackers. Lots of bees, an OK laying queen, but very little taken in from this nectar flow.

Figuring that out- is it really just genetics?- seems pretty much the main thing I'd want to figure out if it weren't for mites- which are front and central. This time is a short hiatus, letting mites explode (though I see none), as the hives explode, but ignoring it. I plan for a June 1 Formic Treatment, but no OA treatments in Spring (as I did last year).

Here's a pretty good hive right now- pretty packed up, though a lot of the weight is pollen, and Maple in brood comb- so not the best situation. You'll see it's a Demareed hive- the QX right there on top of #1- and the rest is filling up with nectar. Of course, all we're about to move into a serious dearth, between our two main crops- so pulling honey is cautionary. One needs to potentially feed, and I have 50 pound sacks on the back porch in preparation.

For the past 3 years, I  think I have had extraordinary results with Demareeing. So gratifying, so easy, so much something I wish I'd started out with when I started out.  Not 100% perfect, and with some wrinkles I've yet to iron out, but I feel- well, not nervous about Spring swarming- and in the past I haven't had a handle on it in the same way. 

The main and fundamental thing with this method is there's no reduction in the field force of bees. A strong hive pretty much remains strong, and get's stronger, as we move to Blackberry.

I'd say definitively the first round is the best- letting a good queen lay without hindrance in an empty brood box. Sometimes there is  90%  brood on each frame for all 10 frames- though other times, they get amped up and start dumping pollen in the combs (which is a serious problem- too much pollen- and I'm not sure what to do with all those frames when I want to make room).

And I now use a  variant- I call it Hoopering (after Ted Hooper, Brit beekeeer), which is Demareeing without the intent of  making increase.  Sort of a split, with a QC, but more like just making a nuc, then doing some manipulations.  I have it happening in a hive right now, it's going great.

Surprising to me, is how few beekeepers Demaree, and instead use methods much more complicated, with much lesser results, and a lot more hassle. Maybe I haven't done it long enough to know the downside, though I've done it on plenty of hives over the past 3 years since I started doing it. Before that time- it was potluck- and I tried a lot methods. I still have a stack of Snelgrove boards- a poor cousin to this method I think,

My Dem method, after the initial placing the queen in an empty box under a queen excluder, and stacking the brood right on top, and supers above that  (not division , I don't place supers on the brood box and divide the two), is as follows.

After moving brood away from the queen, in  about 10 days,  I pull apart the hive to look for queen cells, and  to move brood frames up to #2 to keep the "artificlal swarm" going. Since I put all the brood when I Demarreed into #2, it's where I really need to check for QCs.  Which I rarely find. But before going into #1, and pulling the excluder, I go through #2 and look for empty comb- which is often cleaned up, and polished, and ready to lay in. What's really amazing to me- though it doesn't always happen- is how they prep #2 for egg laying- not storing anything there, as the queen is just below them, and they don't know she can't move up. So the prep it all. So again and again I see these perfectly prepared frames, which I can pull, and switch out immediately. 

I pull these out  first.

So, here's #2, with 4 frames pulled and set aside. I could pull more, but I will wait until I learn what needs to move from #1.

Here's a typical frame from the center of #2- totally ready for egg laying! This is NOT what's happening in #3 or supers above- they are chock full of nectar, or pollen. Just here. Again, not always, but in a good strong hive, it's what happens. Bees sense the queen inches below, below the QX, and keep the cells clean- though thousands of pollen and nectar bees cross over this every day,

Next I pull the excluder and start pulling frames from #1, looking for fully capped frames in particular, which I pull and set aside, but not moving anything to #2 until I find the queen. Too many times I have moved the queen above the excluder, and it's just a mess afterwards,

So here she is- marked blue, this year, as almost all of my queens are, for a reason I cannot yet explain- but they aren't the queens I went into Fall with, so I marked them blue when I find them. Though I really think they are Fall 2020queens- late Fall- that got magically mated late in the year, though many did not (another story, too much Fall OAV I think).

I set the queen frame out on a hanger (those things you clip into the side of a hive- great for making sure a queen does not re-enter) with no jump space to another frame. I want to move frames around with confidence, so knowing where the queen is at this point is essential.

With the queen located, I can confidently start pulling brood out. It's amazing to me how solid with brood these frames are- edge to edge pretty much (at least in the first round), and portending a good mass of bees for the coming blackberry. I pull everyone I can, and usually those with older uncapped larva too, and put them up into #2 directly (which is why I pulled from #2 first thing, so I didn't have to stop).

Then I take my stack of totally primed combs, which the queen is going to be so HAPPY to see, and put them into #1.  In this case, I have 6 frames I didn't move, one with the queen, maybe two with eggs, and the others with pollen (which I'd like to move out- enough with the pollen!). Below this is my slatted rack - those aren't frames. I find these may be likely places queens go to if smoked from above- which means you'll NEVER find them. So I only smoke horizontal until I find her.

Here's one going in- the slatted rack is what you see at the very bottom (not another super). I've already set the queen in on her frame. Every other frame will be either 100% empty, or like this one. No pollen, no stores.

And finally, the q ex goes on, and I restack them all up, having looked at all frames that had QC potential for QCs. In this case, none. And I'm done. Took 10 minutes?

12 inches away, to the right, is the "Hoopered" hive- just one super with a fat (now hatched) queen cell, that caused me to Demaree in the first place. This hive is on autopilot- though taking in nectar as well as the other.  Hoopering (to me) means moving this box over to the left of the hive after 10 days, then recombining once the new queen is mated. I'm not going to do that- I'll just let this one develop.

As always, my hive tool stringed to my jacket. The tool is that weird bent kind- I really like it.