Newspaper queens.....do the bees know best?

[jrmace1]

I have kept honeybees since 1982 when I took interest and learned from a 85 year old whose family kept honeybees since the C18. In early years our combined honey total was near 2000 lbs year from 40 hives. After he died I reduced to 26 hives and today down to 6 hives. Enough to cope with at my age. You learn a lot over the years of beekeeping!

 

[jrmace1]

Ah but do they? I thought one lot of bees did the foreigner in.

That why you use a needle and thoroughly pin prick the whole sheet of newspaper. This allows the 'scent' of two colonies to combine so when they get through the paper and combine, the queen's fight it out as they would if two queens emerged from queen cells. The fittest and strongest queen will kill the other queen and hence two United colonies with one surviving queen.
Bye.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

...And yet studies have shown that in most cases any fights between queens (whether mated or virgin) are 'stage managed' by the workers.

 

[Bumble Bee Slim]

Ah but do they? I thought one lot of bees did the foreigner in.

This was to be my next question,having decided to let the bees sort themselves out,is the coup de grace given by the opposing queen or her workers ...if the latter should I place a queen excluder on the newspaper between the two boxes ?

ahh...just seen jbms post

 

[jrmace1]

This was to be my next question,having decided to let the bees sort themselves out,is the coup de grace given by the opposing queen or her workers ...if the latter should I place a queen excluder on the newspaper between the two boxes ?

ahh...just seen jbms post

No. Queen excluder not to be used. The upper colony will always move down towards the hive entrance so the ' best queen' could be isolated above the excluder.

 

[Bumble Bee Slim]

Or squish both queens and let them raise new ones - you say 2/3 frames of brood, I assume there are worker eggs and young larvae in there somewhere?
If a walk away split can be done with just a couple of frames and letting them raise an emergency queen then this isn't much different!

Yes I have seen eggs and larva but think I would be a little concerned letting them raise a queen from eggs laid by a queen that is failing...is that being over cautious?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

This was to be my next question,having decided to let the bees sort themselves out,is the coup de grace given by the opposing queen or her workers ...if the latter should I place a queen excluder on the newspaper between the two boxes ?

ahh...just seen jbms post

I use a QX when uniting a Q+ colony to a Q- one as it stops the queen wandering into the space dominated by the other 'colony' until they are fully settled.
It doesn't matter whether the queen is above or below the QX, the bees won't abandon her to move nearer the entrance.

I have seen eggs and larva but think I would be a little concerned letting them raise a queen from eggs laid by a queen that is failing...is that being over cautious?

No, not at all, it's still a bit early to expect great success from a colony raising an emergency queen

 

[Nige.Coll]

Ah but do they? I thought one lot of bees did the foreigner in.

Old queens don't fight, david tarpy set up a hive and that had 20 old queens in and they didn't fight. Virgin queens have the fight instinct but as they age they lose it and like you say the workers do the killing.

David has studied queen fights and it is quite interesting, they don't fight fair, sometimes one VQ will poop on another, the frenzy by the workers to clean her gives the other queen a chance to sneak in and sting her.
Now that's fighting dirty lol.

 

[jrmace1]

Yes I have seen eggs and larva but think I would be a little concerned letting them raise a queen from eggs laid by a queen that is failing...is that being over cautious?

Remove a frame of eggs ( less than two day old) from your best colony and put it into the queen less colony. The workers will use it to build a queen cell. The result will be a queen of type from your best hive. If the suspected queen less hive does have a late starting queen, the workers will simply seal the introduced frame as usual and hopefully the existing queen if fertilizes from last autumn, will start laying. Either way your hive lives on!