Demaree pick up

I demaree'd a hive last Saturday, as it was right across the box, and there were multiple queen cells one of which was capped.
The new brood box with queen had a frame of uncapped brood, and a frame of drawn comb, but the rest were foundation.
I checked today to remove queen cells from top box. I had a look in the bottom box expecting them to have started drawing the bottom foundation. They hadn't and were only really on the frame of brood.
How fast would you expect them to pick up. Is the weather slowing them down? In hindsight, should I have not demaree'd?
Is there any way to feed them a light syrup to help them draw comb?

Demaree is part of swarm prevention ie do it before they produce queen cells not after they have done so. In your case I would assume the Queen has been slimmed down by feeding her less as they are getting her ready for swarming. She will be laying much less as a result. I would expect them to build queen cells on that frame of brood and then they will off when 1st cell sealed. Is the queen still present in the bottom box ?

Question might arise as to whether she had stopped laying, ready to swarm. If so, she might have needed a couple days to restart. Presumably she is still there and laying? It has certainly been cooler of late.

Little point in feeding sugar if they have enough stores. They should be collecting water and using honey, if no nectar is available. They will be filling comb rather than drawing extra, if it not needed.

masterBK said:

Demaree is part of swarm prevention ie do it before they produce queen cells not after they have done so. In your case I would assume the Queen has been slimmed down by feeding her less as they are getting her ready for swarming. She will be laying much less as a result. I would expect them to build queen cells on that frame of brood and then they will off when 1st cell sealed. Is the queen still present in the bottom box ?

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Yes, queen is still present in bottom box and no signs of QC's downstairs yet.
In the article I read about demaree, it definitely suggested that it could be used once queen cells have been formed. I think it was the Barnsley bee keepers advice page on demaree.

oliver90owner said:

Question might arise as to whether she had stopped laying, ready to swarm. If so, she might have needed a couple days to restart. Presumably she is still there and laying? It has certainly been cooler of late.

Little point in feeding sugar if they have enough stores. They should be collecting water and using honey, if no nectar is available. They will be filling comb rather than drawing extra, if it not needed.

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So should I just leave them now to get on with it, keeping an eye out for QC's?
Or add a QE under the bottom box to stop absconding?

masterBK said:

Demaree is part of swarm prevention ie do it before they produce queen cells not after they have done so. In your case I would assume the Queen has been slimmed down by feeding her less as they are getting her ready for swarming. She will be laying much less as a result. I would expect them to build queen cells on that frame of brood and then they will off when 1st cell sealed.

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idg said:

In the article I read about demaree, it definitely suggested that it could be used once queen cells have been formed. I think it was the Barnsley bee keepers advice page on demaree.

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I've read that - they're wrong, it's bad advice

idg said:

So should I just leave them now to get on with it, keeping an eye out for QC's?
Or add a QE under the bottom box to stop absconding?

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Nothing much you can do now apart from sit back and hope for the best. If you have a frame or two of drawn comb put it in the BB with the queen (in a proper Demarree you should give her as much drawn comb as you can) unless of course you want to go back in and change it to a proper Pagden. you shouldn't have many drones in there so you could try a QX under and see what happens. Remember to check the top box regularly for emergency QC's

idg said:

Yes, queen is still present in bottom box and no signs of QC's downstairs yet.
In the article I read about demaree, it definitely suggested that it could be used once queen cells have been formed. I think it was the Barnsley bee keepers advice page on demaree.

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Any Barnsley Beekeepers on here care to comment or in a position to edit their website?

Not a member of Barnsley Bk but a quick look on their site confirms its is a swarm prevention method and is used before QCs are formed.

idg said:

In the article I read about demaree, it definitely suggested that it could be used once queen cells have been formed. .

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So it is. It is used to stop swarming fever when queen cells have appeared.

If hive is splitted before queen cell formation, its name is splitting. The colony becomes so weak, that it takes time that it gets swarming impulse again.

Demaree is same as AS. There are several variations how to do same thing.

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So, foundations must be in the hive part, where the old bees are.
In the brood hive part bees are just born and 3 days old. They are not able to draw combs, and they have no need to do it.
Comb drawing stops swarming fever in swarm part. In brood part you should be aware that they do not make after swarm.

Black Comb said:

Not a member of Barnsley Bk but a quick look on their site confirms its is a swarm prevention method and is used before QCs are formed.

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It is splitting, and not a demareering. Look MAAREC pages in USA.
Maarec is consortion of 6 US universties and you can trust on their letters.

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Demaree board is used to make nucs or splits or matings nucs. That is partly a reason to confusion.

Lower part of hive gives heat to the weak colony above the bigger hive. Nothing to do with swarming. You may put a weak colony above a big hive and the build up will be faster.
Board can bee what ever, and necessary official Demaree board.

In USA they like to plit hives early. They get laying queens from Florida, from Hawai, and with splitting they get more hives to pollination work.

Finman said:

So it is. It is used to stop swarming fever when queen cells have appeared.

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Not according to George Demarree - the man who invented it.
Described in detail in Snelgrove's book.
Not everything you see on google is correct

jenkinsbrynmair said:

Not according to George Demarree - the man who invented it.
Described in detail in Snelgrove's book.
Not everything you see on google is correct

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You have nailed yourself into beekeeping history.
Like that Pagden method is desciped nowadays, Pagden even did not have movable frames of foundations.

You love use method names strictly but it mostly it is not main thing in beekeeping.


Lets look what US universites say about swarming control:

Once a colony begins rearing a number of queens and
they are not discovered by the beekeeper until well
advanced, more drastic action than explained above
will be necessary to stop the colony from swarming.


• Separation of Queen from the Brood - Separation of
queen from brood, or Demareeing, is probably the most
widely used swarm control practice and is the easiest
and most successful method in use today to control
swarming. A large number of variations exist and
almost all recent articles in the literature on swarming
utilize the same basic principle of queen and brood
separation.
The basic technique involves rearranging of the colony.
The queen is placed with 1 or 2 frames of sealed brood
in a hive body of otherwise empty comb (or foundation)
on the bottom board and then a queen excluder placed
over the single hive body. One or two supers are added

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What is MAAREC

MAAREC, the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium, is an official
activity of five land grant universities and the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The following
are cooperating members:

-University of Delaware University of Maryland
-Newark, Delaware College Park, Maryland
-Rutgers University The Pennsylvania State University
-New Brunswick, New Jersey University Park, Pennsylvania
-West Virginia University USDA/ARS
-Morgantown, West Virginia Bee Research Lab
Beltsville, Maryland

It doesn't really matter. Demarree's method of swarm control as described in the American bee journal in 1884 was done to avoid swarming preparations being made and involved the continuous culling of emergency QC's in the top box and the moving of frames of eggs from the bottom box to the top until swarming season was over.
You can blather on about MAAREC and whatever else you want, they may call their method Demarree but that is an incorrect description.... The correct method of Demarree swarm control involves separating the queen from the brood and giving more space BEFORE THE BUILDING OF QUEEN CELLS
That was the system George Demarree described nin 1884, if people decided to change it after, it doesn't matter, they can call it a modified demarree if they really want to.
We are talking the correct Demarree's method not some rubbish spouted by a geriatric skywegian troglodyte almost exactly a century after his death.

I suppose we'll have the usual small cadre of gullible sycophants rallying to the cause shortly - ho hum

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Sure you can hang yourself into terms and what beeks did 150 years ago. I just do not mind. Beekeeping is very different from those times.

Yes I'm a member of Barnsley BKA but have no access to edit their website.

Technically I would say the page is ok although it could be a bit misleading as after having stated

unlike swarm control, the demaree method is more aimed at pre-emptive action before any queen cells appear

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in the first paragraph it then mentions

Remove any queen cells that already exist in the original box

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in step 4.

Personally I also disagree with the line

This method requires an additional brood box with foundation (preferably drawn)

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As although I use a version of this method I provide the Queen with almost all drawn frames in the new box and believe a box of foundation is wrong.

In my experience it can also help, if a colony has started swarm preparations, to transfer the queen onto one of the new drawn combs and NOT to put any frame from the original box into the new box.

If this method is to fool the queen and flying bees into thinking they have swarmed why would there be ANY brood present, even just one frame of eggs!!

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During decades I have seen that beekeepers may write what ever. It is not so serious.

main thing is that you nurse hives the whole year round. When a swarm escapes, so escapes the fruits of your nursing.

It is said that "swarming is the worst enemy of beekeeping". ... I admit.

I have seen too, that to avoid swarming difficult job. If you know all terms correctly, it does not help you not a bit.

Finman said:

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During decades I have seen that beekeepers may write what ever. It is not so serious.

main thing is that you nurse hives the whole year round. When a swarm escapes, so escapes the fruits of your nursing.

It is said that "swarming is the worst enemy of beekeeping". ... I admit.

I have seen too, that to avoid swarming difficult job. If you know all terms correctly, it does not help you not a bit.

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That sums it up !