Hello Finski and other northern beekeepers. This has probably been discussed before but would a two queen situation be something to look at to get early buildup for far northern conditions?
Thanks,
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No, it helps nothing. Big hives before autumn and a big winter cluster is a key.
One thing more. It is better to scatter the hives 1 km apart that they do not use same cloud berry pastures. Normal hives has alot of bees and during a day they forage a large area. It depens on weather how far they flye.
Dark Carniolan bee has advantages in low temperature because sun warms it better than light color Italian.
Carniolan has a good pollen store over winter and that is why its spring build up is fast. When you give
pollen patty to Italians, they are as fast.
To answer your question.
A 2 queen system can be forced via the use of queen excluders but bear in mind that there are just as many disadvantages (if not more) as advantages using 2 queens per hive.
Yes, the hive will build up quickly with 2 seperate brood chambers especially if each queen has 2 brood boxes, but at that point the supering of such a hive can become problamatic unless you have a sturdy step ladder or intend to pull supers as soon as they are 90% capped. If a beekeeper is not going to give each queen a double brood chamber why bother with it since 1 queen laying in 2 brood boxes will rear nearly as much brood as 2 queens each in a single brood chamber. 2 queens will also force the bees to commit much more of their harvest stores to brood rearing if using the larger brood chamber. The large brood chambers and commitment of stores/forage that a 2 queen hive requires can rapidly result in cannibalization or brood and loss of the hive if a dearth of more than a few weeks should follow a flow.
Unless a queen excluder is used to keep the lower queen within the hive as well as another for seperating the queens swarming becomes a constant battle. Old/new Queens trapped via excluders can quickly render a 2 queen hive queenless.
The main purpose of utilizing a 2nd queen is to bolster the production of a marginal queen, which raises the question, why not just replace the marginal queen.
My measure of a good queen is one that will lay 4 medium boxes, 7 out of 8 frames, as her normal brood chamber during high production periods. I use 8 frames because I find that a queen will usually lay a maxium of 8 frames of brood in a hive and the slightly narrower hive seems to aid the bees in maintaining a constant temperature in the brood chamber(s). [see another thread on this forum about a German study on temperature deviations in the brood chamber.]
In my experiments with 2 queen hives I've found them to be nothing more than an aggrivation, requiring a lot of extra time to nurse it along.
Also the only way to reap the harvest produced by a 2 queen hive is to pull it as fast as it accumulates due to its appitite. Another factor is disassembling the 2 queen hive into 2 single queen hives at the end of the harvest season which delays their winter prepardness as the adjustment, as with any tampering of a hive, can cause a shock to the hive. Small shocks such as examining the hives and adding or removing supers can be overcome in a short perid. But even re-arranging frames with the brood chamber can cause a shock that takes several days for the hive to recover from. A large shock, such as splitting the hive late in the season could produce a shock neither hive could recover from. Part of that shock is the rearing of adequate numbers of winter bees, and establishing sufficient stores. Insufficient stores can be overcome with feeding and/or placing sheets of fondant over the frames of the upper box.
Needless to say, I'd rater devote my time to developing queens that produce calm, intergetic bees, and that lay as large of brood chamber as possible. I would also rather give the queen as much brood chamber as she likes, be it 4 mediums or 3 deeps. Such a hive will out produce a 2 queen hive given sufficient forage.
Thanks so much for the answers and explanations!
You might want to talk to Allen Dick at www.honeybeeworld.com (http://www.honeybeeworld.com) He is a retired commercial beekeeper from Alberta, Canada. He started out running the Farrar system with 2 queens in 12 frame hives.
In my experience, the limit on the real build up is how much brood they can keep warm and feed. If they have more stores of pollen and honey, they can forage less and nurse more. Having another queen won't matter at this point. The point where it starts to make a difference is IF you have a large population, it's before the flow and you want to get to a huge population. Then the second queen matters, but in a cold climate it is difficult to make much useful difference with two queens early enough.