[Patrick Scannell]

Has anyone tried putting two hives side by side and centering one super (with a queen excluder) over them. Half width covers could be used over the brood chamber tops on either side of the super.

Advantages could be:
1. Easy access to the brood nest for drone comb mite trapping, etc.
2. Increasing the field force for activities like comb honey production.

Disadvantages could be:
1. Increased swarming tendencies associated with crowding.
2. More drift.

Does this work? What am I missing? Thanks.

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[The Honey House]

Patrick,
see http://www.beesource.com/eob/condo/index.htm

 

[Trevor Mansell]

I believe that I saw in an older beejournal an article with something like that beeing done in Alaska. They used three deep boxes with one large super over them. Each box had a queen excluder so the queens would be seperate from each other. The bees would all share the same super . There reason was that if one hive would die the remaining hives would keep the comb in good shape.

 

[Michael Bush]

I've done it as a two queen hive (and several other variations). The only problem is it gets really strong and intimidating (all those bees) and the supers get piled so high you can't reach them and all the other problems that a two queen hive has. I prefer a three box long box (48 3/4") with exluders to divide the box into thirds (I cut a groove for the exlcuder to slide into and use a bound excluder to cut down to fit it). And then stack all the supers in the middle. That way you don't have to move the excluders to get to the two brood chambers. It's a lot less intimidating to work if you don't have to disturb all of the supers just to get to the brood chambers. AND a lot less work.