The Three E's

Easy, effective, and economical…what’s not to like when talking about swarm control methods?! For a couple of years now we have used the Demaree method (I agree, it should be Demareee!) to manage the swarming behaviour of our bees with the added benefit of increasing the honey production of the colony in question. The
knock-on advantage too is that colonies that have been managed in this way seem to survive the winter months more successfully.

So, what is it? Simply put, it’s a way of splitting the colony, much like an A/B split, but vertically. This way the colony is kept together but dissuaded from swarming by separating the queen and the flying bees from the brood and the nurse bees. It’s easy to implement and requires minimal extra equipment, plus it generates a strong colony. 

There are few things to consider, however, the first being that in order to separate the queen from the bees, you have to find her, which is much easier if she’s marked. If she isn’t marked then bear in mind that when you do locate her, this could be a good opportunity to give her a coloured dot! 

The biggest downside for me of this method, all 5ft/1.5m of me, is the resulting height and weight of the new hive, but the pros definitely outweigh the cons. An explanation of the steps to take can be found here:

https://www.beewise.com.au/news/index/view/id/15/swarm-control-demaree-
method.html

The only modification that we have made to the method is to create a ‘drone
escape’. This is because there is likely to be drone brood in the top box and they will
not be able to exit the hive as they can’t fit through the two queen excluders. We
fashioned a small eke to fit under the top brood box, providing a small gap for
workers and drones to come and go. This negates the need to visit the hive every
few days to release any trapped drones – even easier if they have their own special
door!

If you try this method, let us know how you get on.