Swarm Prevention or Control – Demaree Method

If you don’t want to increase the number of colonies in your apiary or you’re short of space, this very simple method is the one for you.

Remember the principle of swarm prevention is to trick the bees into thinking they’ve swarmed by separating the queen and flying bees from the brood and the nurse bees.

The Demaree method is in fact a vertical split.

Equipment needed:

• Clean brood box
• 11 frames of drawn comb or foundation
• 2 x supers
• 2 x Queen excluders
• 1 x dummy board

Method:

Step 1

• Move the brood box to one side
• Place the new brood box on the original floor
• Add 9 frames of drawn comb or foundation leaving a gap in the middle
• Go through the original box and find the frame containing the queen
• This frame must have no queen cells
• Put this frame in the middle of the new box
• Add the extra frame and dummy board
• Add a queen excluder
• Put on 2 supers above the QE
• Add the second QE
• Put the original brood box with the brood on top
• Go through the original brood box, shake off every frame and destroy any queen cells
• Add a frame to replace the one with the queen.
• Put on crown board and roof
• Leave for a week

Day 8

• Inspect the top box and remove any queen cells
• Close the hive and wait for all the brood in the top box to emerge
• Leave for about 3 weeks

Day 25

• All the brood has emerged
• Remove upper brood box and reassemble the hive.
• Voilà!

Alan Baxter

24 April 2023