Double Screen Boards | Pros & Cons 

How many sheets of paper do you use? I've heard one sheet, two sheets but I've never combined two hives.

@@SparkieDog1 Just one seems to work for me.

@@SparkieDog1 I had one hive fight after a newspaper combine using one sheet. So my next one I used two and didn't cut any slits either. Next morning, 12 hours later there was a ball of newspaper shreds outside the hive and no dead bees. These were two strong big hives. For a smaller hive I would use just one. Just my two cents worth.

Good way to requeen and make a lot of honey, but you need to play the averages. Most May work out but some probably won’t, so backup nucs or queens would be handy.

@@russellkoopman3004 Thank you.

Thanks!

It depends on how strong you make the splits. Bigger splits can heat themselves better.

Thanks!

They’re handy, I got a bunch this off-season. Just need to get all my gear painted now.

They’re a great tool. Good luck

Easy to do…and it really does work well.

I’ve done the same. I pulled 3 one or two frame nucs out of a hive with cells in Spring.

Thanks!

Thanks! You’d be surprised to know how much I appreciate these comments. :)

👍

Lots of new equipment this year. It'll age, as all things do.

I split them pretty evenly…whichever is on top will get weaker and whichever on bottom will get stronger. Both those colonies are doing well now in mid December.

@@DuckRiverHoney Curious, how to double feeding after install double screen board?

If I want to feed both I use a frame feeder in the top and bottom. I just have to move the top nuc aside a bit to refill the bottom.

@@DuckRiverHoney This is what I thought. Thanks.

No problem

You could, but you’d probably lose all your field force as they are oriented to the “old” location. The rule of thumb is move them less than 3 feet or more than 3 miles.

A lot later... Hive moving : x3 Feet to x3 Miles Rule : Is rubbish. Ignore this info ! You can enclose any Bees in a Nuc / Hive etc... with good Ventilation AND some 1:1 Syrup (as Feed and source of Water.) Both important in Hot or Stormy Weather. By closing in a Hive of Bees say for x5 or so Days : "They will forget the following" : 1) Any loyalty to a Queen (eg a Made Up Nuc.) Workers Stay ! 2) Bees will forget their original Bearings (Location, or Orientation to where their Home was.) So by doing this you can move many Hives, Hive Boxes, Nucs, Splits, Mini Mating Nucs, even Queens (in their Cages.) With no problems at all ! Simples. Hope this helps. 😎 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Happy Beekeeping 2023 ! 🥳 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Ps. Always good to Isolate any Incoming Hive : A bought Nuc or Hive, a Bait Hive, even a Caught Swarm on Site... away from your other Hives until an Inspection shows everything is fine and dandy. You don't want Varroa Mites, and other Disease to cross Spread by Bee Drift or the Beekeeper themselves ! Use different Gloves, and Clean your Hive Tool too. 👀

The double screen prevents the two colonies from sharing queen pheromone (because the bees can't touch through the screen), that is why you can have two colonies.

The tape is there to help the virgin queen find her way home. They orient on that and the tape makes the nest entrance stick out.

@@DuckRiverHoney I’ll remember that! Thanks for the videos!!

No worries. You can do the same with paint, but the tape comes off easy if you don’t want it there forever.

Lots of reasons, but the biggest one is simplicity. I don’t have two sizes of anything, and I don’t need nuc boxes.

A colony that is preparing to swarm increases drone rearing. So yeah it’s normal in that specific hive to see a bunch of drones.

Drone rearing is increased when a colony prepares to swarm.

I’m pretty much self taught, but Penn State has an online course that’s supposed to be really good.

It’s an extra piece of equipment, and it makes it tougher to inspect the lower colony. You also lose field bees from the upper portion vs taking a split and moving it to a yard a few miles away.

Those bees are currently living in an undisclosed location. I figured they’d move into my trap as it’s already caught bees this year, but they had somewhere they liked better.

I did pop them open and refill feeders, but I didn't dive in enough to disturb the colony.

Bob Binnie has had several videos on this topic. I have 3 of them, a 5 frame, an 8 frame, and a 10 frame. They have worked well for me the last 2 years.

Peter I’m self educated I’d say. I have a background in agriculture, with a couple of college degrees in Ag Economics. I’m also obsessive and read nothing but bee books and watched nothing but bee videos for a couple years after I got into bees.

@@DuckRiverHoney , Good morning Nathan from rainy Melbourne , do you have a personal email at all , for I have a question or 2 . ??

Hi Peter, nathan@duckriverhoney.com is a good email for me. Thanks

Good point, but what I did is a bit of an exception. Both of the top nuc boxes are mostly foundation, so there isn’t any comb, nectar, or pollen to protect, thus much less risk of wax moth or small hive beetle pressure. The advantage of this is I can leave those nucs alone for 7-10 weeks if I need to without worry of them overcrowding. Heck, I can leave them both there till February…wintered as double mediums.

Remember to it only really takes a small bunch of bees to raise a queen then he can boost them up

I believe they're fine, and queenright. I've experienced several new queens that will lay multiple eggs in a cell, but even with those new queens it isn't the norm. Most laying workers I've seen lay a LOT of eggs in each cell. With these two nucs most of the cells have one egg, and they're in the bottom of the cell, so pretty normal.

@@DuckRiverHoney it is completely normal for a newly mated queen to lay two eggs here and there while she's figuring it out. If you had a laying worker the eggs wouldn't be centered in the cell as their abdomen isn't long enough to reach. This is why you see eggs on the cell walls and all over the comb.

^ this

Don’t quite understand you…the hive swarmed, queen left, split it, now have two queens.

@@DuckRiverHoney The queen swarms only when there is either a new queen present or when one is about to emerge, I thought that I had seen one of the cells with the entrance open, but empty.

No, the old queen definitely left. None of the queen cells had emerged yet.

I checked and still didn't see her!