Introducing virgin queens

[Andy Coleman]

I came across this ...

"Virgin queens appear to have little queen*pheromone*and often do not appear to be recognized as queens by the workers. A virgin queen in her first few hours after emergence can be placed into the entrance of any queenless hive or*nuc*and acceptance is usually very good, whereas a mated queen is usually recognized as a stranger and runs a high risk of being killed by the older workers."

... Do you agree? We had several nice looking Qs emerge in our hands while we were dealing with a swarmy hive the other day, and the general view was they could be hard to introduce so simply.

 

[Black Comb]

An old beek told me that an easy way to requeen a nasty colony was to run a virgin in the front. Virgin kills queen and away you go.
Tried it twice this year and it failed both times.

 

[DanBee]

Do you agree?

Yes.

 

[Poly Hive]

The issue being how many colonies are actually really and truly queenless?

The devil is aye in the detail.

PH

 

[ebee]

I tried introducing a protected queen cell to 5 hives this year to enforce supersedure. Only 1 seems to have worked.

 

[DorsetB]

I have done it many times: "pull" the queen from a cell which is obviously ripe, trap the queen, put her straight into the Q- hive/nuc/apidea, and wait.

One thing you *must* do is be scrupulously clean with queen clips & cages, not use the same one for two queens in the same session, not leave anything which has touched a queen lying around, and wash all your "stuff which has touched a queen" straight afterwards, ready for the next time

4 out of 5 worked ok this year, jury still out on the 5th.

One thing I did differently this year was to remove a frame from the receiving nuc instead of just running her in, and opened the Q cage to let her out directly onto the comb.

The first thing she did was dunk her head into an open nectar cell, and stuff her face into it in a very unladylike manner.

While she was doing this, she was surrounded by workers who to all intents and purposes balled her, one even biting her wing and twisting it back, as I have seen done before.

At one point I actually thought she had been stung and had died head-down in the cell, as several workers jumped on her and flexed their abdomen over her back and underneath her. She kept her head in the open cell and seemed to be completely unphased by all the commotion going on above. I did actually think she was dead, but she was simply gorging herself on nectar and ignoring the workers.

I was extremely tempted to intervene but decided not to, on the basis that I might make things worse. On two occasions, she disappeared completely (but I assume she kept eating!)

It took just over 6 minutes for her to take her head out of the cell and stop feeding. As she then started to move over the comb, the same cluster of workers followed her, and seemed to be grooming her.

I pulled another 3 queens from ripe cells and did exactly the same thing on known queenless nucs and 1 x hive made queenless by me (ie less than 1 minute from queen cell to new nuc/hive): virtually the same thing happened, with the queen head down feeding for between 3 and 6 minutes every time.

I have to wonder if the "balling" we often see is in situations like these an over-enthousiastic welcoming party who although the queen has no pheromones to give off, is still recognised as a future queen to be.

Of course these are the times when you have completely forgotten to have your camera to hand...will try to remember later this month.

 

[Finman]

.
Hives do not accept virgins easily, BUT when the hive has capped its own queen/emergency cells, they athey accept easily what ever queen.

Bees accept just emerged queen but when you try to look it 2 days later, it is mostly gone.

 

[Norton]

This is obviously an area where a lot more research could be done to increase the acceptance rate. There must be many variables that affect the outcome.

One thing stands out and that is to avoid touching the queen, just like we should avoid handling newborn rabbits, puppies or kittens.

After the queen emerges exchanges pheromones with the worker bees by trophallaxis and is accepted as being a member of the colony.

 

[Finman]

.
Loss rates are high when I used in mating nucs system than workers can be from from what ever hive.

No I have used 10 year system that I take nuc bees from queen rearing hive. It is mostly swarming hive where I have grafted better larvae.
Accepting rates are zero.

I try to keep all the time mated spare queens.

Queens, which has layed under 2 weeks, accepting rates are poor.
70% according Australian research. You may wonder how accept with virgins could be better?

A big loss happening is multi-room mating nucs. If a hive box has been devided in 3 or 4 parts, quite often I got only one mated queen. It killed others when they peeped ech other to fight. It went off when I started to use solitary mating nucs.

 

[Norton]

Yes I tried Langstroth equipment divided into 3 by thin partitions. I didn't like this system at all and as Finman says it seems to be much better to have separate units.

On the other hand, Brother Adam used hives with 4 compartments with a high success rate!

 

[Finman]

On the other hand, Brother Adam used hives with 4 compartments with a high success rate!

Perhaps he did not tried better.

I used 35 years 3-4 partition system. Then one queen breeder said that solitary system is better. And it sure is. It is very comfortable to transport those feather light nucs from place to place.

Difficulty is when I have 10 virgins and I should profound nucs.
When I take a frame of bees, they do not feel the cell their home and start to look for better smells. So they move to next neighbour.

Second problem was that new queens peeped in they apartment and they went out to check who heck is peeping. It is you, she thought and killed the neigbour. Bees moved with living queen. Soon I had only one nuc in 4 room flat.

And the best of all. I craft good larvae to swarming cells. It is ***** sure system to get good queens. Near emerging I take those frames to nucs and queen may emerge freely among workers.

Yes I did 5 y like books say. Not good at all. Losses were about 50% It is for guys who rear 1000 queens in a year.

Sugar on bottom: When I splitted poly boxes and made 3 frame polynucs, the build up of small colonies were splended. Finger size entrance and it is enough even in hot summer. To build mesh floor to nucs is a disaster. Yes, we have warmer summers here. Today it will be 23C.

After a week it will be July. Well, summer just started...

.
.

 

[oliver90owner]

I used the MB poly nucs split for three frames either side with the entrances at opposite ends, and last year they all co-existed with no prpblem. Only a small sample size, so not a conclusive result. I can understand the problems with multiple entrances all on the one side.

Anyone tried 4 with entrances alternating at each end? Fewer losses but still nearer to 50%?

 

[Finman]

.
I did dot perhaps understand but in my 4-nuc complex entrances were in different sides.

 

[BBG]

Finger size entrance and it is enough even in hot summer. To build mesh floor to nucs is a disaster. Yes, we have warmer summers here. Today it will be 23C.

After a week it will be July. Well, summer just started...
.

Mesh Floors - When we went to feed a Kieler nuc we found they had made comb in the feeder compartment, so we put a cut off tub of fondant on the bottom, partially covering the mesh floor.

Next inspection, we found the Queen had started laying on the frames above the covered area and stores were above the OMF.

We have since repeated this on other slow to lay Queens and it works.

When they're laying well we uncover the OMF.

 

[For want of a better word]

An odd method I know, but experimentation sometimes gives good and unexpected results.

A hive prepared ready to extract droneless bees for mating nucs became surplus to requirements. ( Top half queen minus, with brood, and above a qe with queen and brood in bottom box)
A virgin queen was simply dropped into the q - box, and box moved to one side.

Now have a thriving colony of nice AMMs.... may be different with the BuckSpinfast's variety?

 

[beehive1234]

If the bees aren't completely and utterly confuzzed.............................................................................................it's no wonder they are struggling......
All this experimental intrusions in time slot that resembles 10000000000th second in bee existance, no wonder we are killing the Honey Bee!

 

[beehive1234]

Not withstanding the breeding that has been allowed without consideration, all applied in 50 years of a species developing for millions of years.

A species perfectly adapted, being existing through all, for Millions of years, latterly working with men who have worked by the bee's laws, now have to work by MANY MAN'S LAWS.......

Suddenly unable to choose, by Darwins Law,

Weekened by inapropriate feeding.

All within 50 years.

 

[Finman]

.
Hallelujah!

 

[MuswellMetro]

An old beek told me that an easy way to requeen a nasty colony was to run a virgin in the front. Virgin kills queen and away you go.
Tried it twice this year and it failed both times.

same, though i hsve seen it work

they have to be less than a hour old i was told

 

[Nic Rhodes]

we split a hive at the weekend for the chairman which was 'nasty' and put virgins into both bits to try this. Fingers crossed. We could not find the queen but there was evidence of her activity. Nothing to loose in this case and get nice queen heading up the stock if successful.