Demaree Method

[andyww]

Hi,

After looking in my hives a few weeks back I hit what I read to be danger levels for swarming, i.e. brood on at least 8 frames and a noticeable increase in drones.

For the first time I applied the Demaree Method.

So, I took the brood box off and then placed another brood with foundation on the stand, into the middle of this I placed the queen on a frame containing unsealed broad. I then replaced the QE, put the super on next, and then replaced the original brood box.

After my most recent inspection I see no further queens cells. I see the bees are drawing out the new foundation and the queen is laying in them. I see the amount of sealed brood reducing in the top box. But strangely within the top of the super and bottom of the brood I have quite allot of sealed drone cells, no unsealed cells or eggs. Now I could swear that there was no eggs within the super cells when I did this manipulation, so I'm now left scratching my head.

Have I messed this up???

 

[Bryang]

Have a look at JBM's modified version of the Demaree method.

 

[enrico]

They move eggs.
E

 

[Antipodes]

Could a laying worker have laid them and then died?

 

[Beefriendly]

It's usually laying workers, all hives have a small percentage of them, but their eggs are usually removed by the "worker police". When you increase the volume of a hive, such as in a Demaree, then the worker police seem to miss some up in the supers. Bit short staffed, like their human equivalents.
Not sure why Antipodes thinks they would have died,,,,they will still be around.

 

[Antipodes]

I thought the laying worker might have died as there are no visible eggs above the queen excluder.

 

[Beefriendly]

I think he means in the top of the super and the bottom of the brood box...above the qx in his demaree.
Often get a few drones from laying workers on the heather where I often have 4-5 supers above a qx.
Alternate explanations are the bees moved a few drone eggs up there or the queen got past the queen excluder, laid a few in the top super and came back down below QX again.
Doh!

 

[Antipodes]

Yes...my thought was that if the culprit was a laying worker above the excluder, she might have died after an initial burst of egg laying there, hence no eggs there now. She could just have easily gone back down below the excluder and decided to no lay any more eggs above it I guess.
It has got me wondering how egg laying changes the lifespan of a worker, if at all?

 

[SDM]

In a normal Q- laying worker scenario I'd expect some of them to live longer as theyd have been around with no brood to feed which "ages" worker bees. So potentially as long as winter bees( but shorter because the other worksrs will fail)
For the 1 in 10,000 that develops in every Q+ hive at the periphery of the nest it should be about normal

 

[masterBK]

It is hardly ever just one laying worker but several active at any one time.

 

[SDM]

It is hardly ever just one laying worker but several active at any one time.

Wouldnt that depend on the size of the colony? Im sure i read somewhere that its 1 in 10,000 and the ratio is the same for all social hymenoptera.

 

[masterBK]

Depends on the (low) level of pheromone from queen and brood reaching the workers in a relatively isolated area of the hive