Don't Split! Get a big honey crop with the Demaree method

Peter… Great explanation. A caveat I suggest is to inform beekeepers watching this is to not base their rewards of a huge crop of honey on this method just because they perform it. Myself who lives in an area where nectar is not as prevalent as some other areas, would have a very hard time getting that much honey as you do in your area. So the Demeree is great for reducing swarming without lessening the hive size but the honey amount is dependent on one’s nectar amount.

Great video. I practiced the Demaree swarm control method in my apiary of 8 colonies last season, after watching your previous videos in the yard on the Demaree method. I used the 2 queen excluder option that's not shown in your current demonstration. Here's what I practiced: First step - disassembled strong colony down to the landing board. Second step - put empty deep box on landing board. Third step - found the queen and placed her and the frame she was on in this bottom deep (only one frame of brood). Fourth step - filled out the remainder of the box with empty comb frames. Fifth step - placed queen excluder. Six step - added 2-3 honey supers. Seven step - added another queen excluder. Eight step - placed the remaining brood box on top of the second queen excluder. Ninth step - place 3/8" diameter sticks under the front corners under the inner cover to allow bees to have an upper entrance (this allows drone bees to escape and the bees love the upper entrance), Tenth step put the lid on the hive. Eleventh step - Important come back 1 week later and remove or harvest the queen cells from the top brood box. Come back another week later and check for queen cells, again. Check the bottom brood box. Step 12 - Whenever the queen in the bottom box is running out of space to lay, repeat the entire demaree split again for the duration of the entire nectar flow. Note: Have plenty of extra comb frames and empty boxes ready to be put to use. Do the demaree method early in the honey flow on big over wintered colonies. Results - my apiary produced 770 pounds of honey. One colony by itself produced over 250 pounds of honey. Timing is everything. I lost 2 of the 8 colonies to swarming because of mistiming and running out of extra comb frames and boxes and those 2 colonies did not produce hardly any honey after swarming.

Excellent video, Thank you! Your teaching style and sketches made understanding the Demaree method so clear. I’m going into my 5th year of beekeeping and don’t want more hives, I just want to be able to properly care for the ones I have now. You are a superb teacher! Thank you!!!!!!

The sketches were very helpful. Thanks.

This video was good. I understand it now. It puts a bottleneck on population production but keeps the existing workforce to continue making honey.

Absolutely love your videos, i cant wait to do the Demaree method you have taught on is alot of your videos!! I am in North Central Kentucky and Red Maples have been in bloom about 2 weeks and bees are busy. Thank you so much!!

We do this in South Florida our method is this: we put on the second deep, as soon as 5 frames are in the second deep we place an empty box any size on the pallet then the second deep with the 5 frames of brood bees and honey then an excluder 2 empty honey supers then tbe bottom deep on top. We don't have swarming issues here. hope that helps

Amazing. Liked the way you presented demaree method. This will be my go to video for learning it. Much appreciated

Not sure why, I was subscribed for a couple years, just noticed I had to re-subscribe for some reason. I love your video content. Thanks

I did this method past year and I collected 50kg per hive. In addition I put all the queen cells in a special boxes and I had 17 new queens in just one bee hive.

Thank you for this great video! I’m a 3rd year keeper with 3 hives - that’s all I want to keep right now due to space and equipment. I run all 8 frame mediums so this should work well for me cause I can easily move boxes around as needed. I will probably still do one 5 frame nuc box just as an insurance but this should work well and give us lots of honey as well as keeping all the girls here. Appreciate you sharing your knowledge and your time!

As always great advice Peter

Wow, very interesting video. Thank you for showing us the diagram. That was very helpful.

I used the demaree method last year and got 100 lbs . This year I will do the same but lost one hive this winter so I will save a frame with a single capped queen cell to start a replacement hive. Being 73 full deeps are a bear to move so I built a platform and a young neighbor to help. I have had my original hive for 4 years. Thanks for you advice. I’m in central New Jersey .

Thank You, Peter. At the end of my beekeeping life, I think I should try this method. I keep only two hives now, so, there should be time enough to play with them. No swarming too. Perfect tutorial and a great video. Greetings. Adam. Bye.

Thank you for your time. Very helpful with ideas on what works and don't Thank you

Thank you for your video! So easy to understand! I lost both of my hives over winter on my first year 😢 have to start all over again this year but I struggled hard with swarming last year (caught my swarm twice and saved them), but this would help so much!

Different people learn different ways, and I love and learn a lot from the way that you teach thanks keep them coming please 🙏🏻

You came out of left field, but welcome to my subscription list. Thanks for the great content.

Thanks for great video Peter. New to all of this and just starting third year so this technique will be extremely useful. Getting great numbers of bees in early spring due to insulated hives plus use condensing method. Have also eradicated robber problem completely, year round which stops disease spreading from entry by bees, wasps, hornets and moths. Especially important in spring when pollen is low and stores scarce, so bees prone to robbing hives with dead colonies which may be diseased and end up with fatal consequences for strong colony. Makes for stress free colonies too, often a bigger problem than considered.