Efficient requeening / Easy queen replacement

[jeff33]

Re-queening yearly is a bit OTT. How do you propose to choose your breeder queens through that method unless you spend £££s in buying a breeder queen yearly to raise all your F1s?

There is a lot being said in books and elsewhere about the potential benefits of re-queening yearly but to be honest I am yet to see it in person. I haven't noticed any difference in swarming tendencies between hives headed by 1st year queens and 2-3rd years queens and neither have I noticed any decrease in brood production, apart from 2 queens that run dry after their 3rd season and had to be replaced.

I personally will change every 2 years and if a queen is very good she will go in a nuc and used for breeding the following year. The only queens changed every year are those culled for not meeting the 'standards'.

 

[Biodlaren]

With 30 hives you should be able/proficient in finding queens....

Yes, I know that after 13 years with bees I should be proficient enough to find the queen in no time. But I'm not. For example, early last spring I tried to find a marked queen in a smal underdeveloped 5 frame nuc. After half an hour I gave up. Same thing a week later. Yet another week later I was finally able to find her. She had a glowing dot on her back and a sneer on her face.

Trying to unite two queenright colonies is going to result in, not only the queens fighting, but all the workers too - your hope that the young queen will win the fight is also just that , a hope, and as we know there are two hopes in the world, Bob and No

I know this is not the most safe way to go, but if I wouldn't need to look for the queen, much time and pain is saved.
I use to by mated queens from respected breeders and produce daughters of them.

 

[ericbeaumont]

queen in a smal underdeveloped 5 frame nuc. After half an hour I gave up.

I've done that numerous times.

With fewer bees the temptation to look at bees is irresistible, when a better method is to scan a frame in a rapid pattern looking for a difference, in which case bees are not examined.

On one occasion a queen in a double-brood colony had to found and despatched; several others had a go at finding her. I ran through the boxes several times and then removed and separated all the frames before I found her, walking along the rebate on the bottom of an empty box. Time: nearly two hours!

 

[Antipodes]

Yes, I know that after 13 years with bees I should be proficient enough to find the queen in no time. But I'm not. For example, early last spring I tried to find a marked queen in a smal underdeveloped 5 frame nuc. After half an hour I gave up. Same thing a week later. Yet another week later I was finally able to find her. She had a glowing dot on her back and a sneer on her face.


I know this is not the most safe way to go, but if I wouldn't need to look for the queen, much time and pain is saved.
I use to by mated queens from respected breeders and produce daughters of them.

I agree with Eric. I will add that practice makes permanent, not necessarily perfect. Every time you look in the hive and take half an hour to find the queen, you are practicing your mistakes. You end up getting really good at not finding the queen.
Practice properly by going for the most likely frame, remove it slowly and carefully and scan quickly on one side and then the other and only look for the queen as per Eric's advice above.

 

[Courty]

I've done that numerous times.

With fewer bees the temptation to look at bees is irresistible, when a better method is to scan a frame in a rapid pattern looking for a difference, in which case bees are not examined.

On one occasion a queen in a double-brood colony had to found and despatched; several others had a go at finding her. I ran through the boxes several times and then removed and separated all the frames before I found her, walking along the rebate on the bottom of an empty box. Time: nearly two hours!

I have a queen to find and dispatch on The Hive From Hell, on double brood and couldn’t find her last year on numerous occasions. I’ll check the rebate on the bottom of the box first, thanks for the tip!
courty

 

[piggy]

what about using a shaker box {brood box with q e underneath. As used by mike Palmer & Ian Steppler

 

[Kirbygrip]

I just watched the BIBBA talk by Tony Jefferson on ‘Never waste a Queen cell’. He said something I hadn’t heard before - if introducing a Q cell to a queenless nuc, the queen once emerged and mated would not lay until all the brood from the previous queen had hatched. Also if you checked on the newly mated queen but thought she might be unmated because you saw no eggs, then put in a test frame of eggs, she would not lay until all of that brood had hatched and therefore might never lay as too much time had passed. Can anyone here confirm this?

 

[madasafish]

I just watched the BIBBA talk by Tony Jefferson on ‘Never waste a Queen cell’. He said something I hadn’t heard before - if introducing a Q cell to a queenless nuc, the queen once emerged and mated would not lay until all the brood from the previous queen had hatched. Also if you checked on the newly mated queen but thought she might be unmated because you saw no eggs, then put in a test frame of eggs, she would not lay until all of that brood had hatched and therefore might never lay as too much time had passed. Can anyone here confirm this?

It's all about timescales .
An emerged queen takes approx 5-7 days before she goes on mating flights and up to a week or more before she lays.

Capped brood takes 12 days from capping to emergence.

So Tony Jefferson was correct.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I just watched the BIBBA talk by Tony Jefferson on ‘Never waste a Queen cell’. He said something I hadn’t heard before - if introducing a Q cell to a queenless nuc, the queen once emerged and mated would not lay until all the brood from the previous queen had hatched. Also if you checked on the newly mated queen but thought she might be unmated because you saw no eggs, then put in a test frame of eggs, she would not lay until all of that brood had hatched and therefore might never lay as too much time had passed. Can anyone here confirm this?

This bit is absolutely wrong. The queen will lay as soon as she is mature enough and has mated. Very often introducing a frame can kick start a "reluctant" queen

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I just watched the BIBBA talk by Tony Jefferson on ‘Never waste a Queen cell’. He said something I hadn’t heard before - if introducing a Q cell to a queenless nuc, the queen once emerged and mated would not lay until all the brood from the previous queen had hatched.
Also if you checked on the newly mated queen but thought she might be unmated because you saw no eggs, then put in a test frame of eggs, she would not lay until all of that brood had hatched
an anyone here confirm this?

No - that's absolute rubbish, it's usually because by the time the queen has mated the brood will have emerged anyway - nothing to do with a queen being reluctant to lay alongside an old queen's brood.

 

[jeff33]

and the concept of 'never wasting a queen cell' is also misguided. I can tell you now that I have a couple of hives that I would never contemplate having queens from!!!

 

[jeff33]

Back on this thread as I was looking for a similar subject. I hear many professional beeks will keep their first round of queens (or buy them in) for their own use, mostly to re-queen production colonies.
Surely they don't go through the same faff as we do nor are they able to make a large amount of nucs very early in the season to host the first round of queens produced before uniting? Acknowledging that not 100% of hives are requeened, how do professional beeks deal with large scale requeening with no faffing around?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

When we were helping out Chris Broad at Saltway honey farm we just pulled out the old queens, squished them then popped in the new queen in her JZBZ cage and let them get on with it.
The only thing I do differently now (depending on the apiary location) is I may leave the candy covered for 24 hours.

 

[jeff33]

When we were helping out Chris Broad at Saltway honey farm we just pulled out the old queens, squished them then popped in the new queen in her JZBZ cage and let them get on with it.
The only thing I do differently now (depending on the apiary location) is I may leave the candy covered for 24 hours.

Diolch Emyr. What would you say is the success rate with straight intorduction like that? I have had mixed results in the past with the feistier hives more likely to kill the new queen (I live the candy for 24-48h).

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

What would you say is the success rate with straight intorduction like that?

It was pretty high IIRC I find it has an acceptable success rate too, the 24 hour 'cooling down' period is good especially for a feisty hive but I've found that leaving them any longer, regardless of the hive temperament leads to more failures

 

[jeff33]

It was pretty high IIRC I find it has an acceptable success rate too, the 24 hour 'cooling down' period is good especially for a feisty hive but I've found that leaving them any longer, regardless of the hive temperament leads to more failures

I will give it a go this year. I also made a few push-in cages so can compare results.

 

[Amari]

Yes, I know that after 13 years with bees I should be proficient enough to find the queen in no time. But I'm not.

With 30 hives you should be able/proficient in finding queens,

Finding queens used to take me quite a while, but now, I usually find her quite quickly on the first, or second frame I remove. I don't mark them. Adequate glasses make a big difference.

Finding queens: I've (50th year) been repeatedly chagrined this year examining hives with two neighbour-beeks (third and sixth year respectively) with a view to queen marking. One or other of them always spot the queen well before I do. This despite me wearing reading glasses. I find it difficult to explain.......

 

[jeff33]

Probably linked more to the eyes/brain information transfer rather than a technique.

 

[Bazzer]

Hi.

There are many benefits with having a young queen in the hive. Therefor my intention is to replace the queen yearly, or every second year.
I have read in every source source I can find how this can be done. There are plenty of different kind of ways to do this, but every method starts the same; Find the old queen and remove her.
Even if the queen is painted I can have a really hard time to find her. Specially in the later half of the season. If I at all find her I have to calculate for at least half an hour for searching for the queen. I now have 30 hives. 30 hives x 30 min = 15 hours just to find the queens. This is just not sustainable. There has to be a better way?!

This season I will try to make nucs with new queens, and later reunite them with the main hive, without trying to find the old queen. My guess is the younger queen has a better chance against her older progenitor. The time consumption here is at least predictable.

How does those of you with a larger number of hives do? Is it even possible to requeen every hive yearly in a larger scale?

The largest beefarmer in the UK , Murray McGregor more or less does what you are suggesting. He splits his colonies in two vertically around swarming time and then reunites them together when they go to the heather - the queens sort it out amongst themselves - most of the time the young queen wins out but not always and for quite a few colonies both carry on together into the winter.

 

[Finman]

[QUOTE="Biodlaren, post: 761317, member:
Even if the queen is painted I can have a really hard time to find her. Specially in the later half of the season. If I at all find her I have to calculate for at least half an hour for searching for the queen. I now have 30 hives. 30 hives x 30 min = 15 hours just to find the queens. This is just not sustainable.
[/QUOTE]

Changing the queen is not a big job.
You may squeeze the old queen when you meet it during ordinary inspection.

Next day you take the new queen from mating nuc and give it to the colony.

But when you count, how much it takes time from grafting to a laying queen, it is a big time. And how much you loose emerged queens during the project. When new queens have layed 4 weeks, you see how it has layed, what laying patern and are the new workers angry.

Intoducing a new queen into the hive is not a place where should start to save your time. Just do it carefully that you do not loose your valuable queen.