Demaree is a way of swarm prevention, not swarm control, it is aimed at pre-emptive action before any

queen cells appear. It was first described by George Demaree in an article in the American Bee Journal in
1884.
When using the Demaree method, the beekeeper separates the queen from most of the brood by
manipulating the frames and a using a queen excluder. The result is a hive with little congestion and lots of
room for the queen to lay. In essence, the hive believes it has already swarmed. The Demaree method can
be quite effective at swarm prevention, but involves a lot of manipulation, and heavy lifting so is not suitable
for all.
One important point: When you set up the hive, be sure to remove any swarm cells in both brood boxes that
are already present. Any cell not removed may hatch and cause a problem within the hive. Strictly speaking
if you have swarm cells its too late for a Demaree, you need to move onto swarm control!
I decided to try it on my strongest hive this year for 2 reasons
1. It needs less equipment and less apiary space just an extra brood box, rather than a floor, brood
box & roof and space for these that the traditional AS method (Pagden) requires.
2. I wanted to pre-empt the swarm impulse, get one step ahead before they thought of swarming (read
ahead to see how hopeful this actually was, the little darlings will always get you somehow!)
Here are the basic steps:
1. Move original brood box to one side, leaving floor in place
2. Replace with new brood box, full of drawn comb/foundation, having removed 2 centre frames
and putting aside.
3. Go back to original brood boxes and find the queen, place her and two frames of sealed brood in
the centre of the new brood box.
4. Place a queen excluder and 2 supers above this box.
5. Put original brood box with remaining frames on top of the supers. Push the frames together and
put the two empty drawn frames (from step 2) on either end of the box. You dont want to split
the brood.
6. Complete with roof!
So you now have:
Roof
Brood box with brood frames & nurse bees
Super
Super
QX
Brood box with Queen, 2 frames brood, flyers and drawn frames/ foundation
Which looks like the picture below (you might notice the commercial super mixed in there but it
doesnt matter)

7. After one week, go through the top brood box and remove any swarm cells (Or move to nucs
if you are wanting to increase)
In the end, the hive will not have swarmed, so it will contain lots of bees and lots of honey.
The growing hive may once again develop the urge to swarm, which is why a second or even third . . .
Demaree is often needed.
In a nutshell you split the hive with the brood and nurse bees above the QX and supers and the queen and
flying bees below in the original brood box position. This is supposed to reduce overcrowding and prevent
any swarming urge. As brood above emerges over the next 24 days and having destroyed or removed any
queen cells, the old mother box can be taken away leaving a full strength colony behind.
How did it work out for me. Well as expected, not as expected! All seemed to be going well on the weekly
inspections, brood emerging from the top box, queen still laying and comb being drawn on the bottom,
lovely. Then, on the inspection 3 weeks after I started what did I find swarm cells, about 6/7, ho-hum! So,
nuc out of the shed and ASd using the nuc method.
Would I do it again, probably one more time to see if it can work but the heavy lifting for inspections and
the honey in the top brood box would make me think is it worth it, especially as it didnt work out! But
every experience is a learning opportunity and Im glad I tried it.