Queen introduction - excitement or aggression

[Parsonage Bees]

The result of my queen rearing for this year is in this cage with attendants. Has been for 4 days since I killed the old queen in a mature colony, across 8/9 frames.

Is this bee-haviour aggression or excitement?

I tried to have a look 2 days earlier and they were mad as hell so I retreated.

I decided to be cautious and make up a nuc from the colony and introduce her into that first.

Thanks . . . . . Ben

 

[BeeSpace]

Hard to tell from the vid - were they moving out of the way easily and not holding on to the cage with their mandibles? If they were, I take it as broadly favourable, but I would say that I'm very new to queen rearing!

 

[Brian Bush]

You say was the cage plus attendants? I hope you removed the attendants before placing the cage on the top bars!!
If not this is aggression. They are trying to kill the attendants!!!

 

[jeff33]

You say was the cage plus attendants? I hope you removed the attendants before placing the cage on the top bars!!
If not this is aggression. They are trying to kill the attendants!!!

I have never removed attendants from an introduction cage and never had a problem. This seems to be another needless practice in beekeeping that continue to confuse the less experienced beeks!

 

[Parsonage Bees]

I agree. If they are prepared to accept the queen they should be happy with the attendants. ?

Until I released her, the queen was in there for 6 days. Doesn't she need those attendants to feed her?

 

[Swarm]

No, the colony will do that, even if they hate her. I don't remove attendants, I watched one lot walk onto the comb with the queen.

 

[B+.]

I have never removed attendants from an introduction cage and never had a problem. This seems to be another needless practice in beekeeping that continue to confuse the less experienced beeks!

The point is that you want the queen to solicit food through the bars of the cage and transmit her pheromones throughout the colony. If the workers do that, it is more likely the queen will be balled as soon as you release her because here pheromones haven't been dispersed.
That video seemed like they were very aggressive to me. The problem with all these videos is that the person who shot them never says if the introduction was successful, or not. My advice would be to ask what the persons success-rate was before you go adopting a scheme you may not have tried before.
I always remove the attendants.

 

[jeff33]

The point is that you want the queen to solicit food through the bars of the cage and transmit her pheromones throughout the colony. If the workers do that, it is more likely the queen will be balled as soon as you release her because here pheromones haven't been dispersed.
That video seemed like they were very aggressive to me. The problem with all these videos is that the person who shot them never says if the introduction was successful, or not. My advice would be to ask what the persons success-rate was before you go adopting a scheme you may not have tried before.
I always remove the attendants.

That may be the theory but after trying with and without attendants including the push-in cage over emerging brood I have never noticed any difference in acceptance. Agreed I have not introduced 1000's of queens but based on my sample of queens introduced over the years, I have lost only 1 queen through my own fault by not checking for EQCs. As such, I don't bother anymore faffing around by removing attendants and will only use the push-in cage if re-queening a full hive.

 

[B+.]

That may be the theory but after trying with and without attendants including the push-in cage over emerging brood I have never noticed any difference in acceptance. Agreed I have not introduced 1000's of queens but based on my sample of queens introduced over the years, I have lost only 1 queen through my own fault by not checking for EQCs. As such, I don't bother anymore faffing around by removing attendants and will only use the push-in cage if re-queening a full hive.

I have introduced A LOT of queens - virgins and mated.
The only difference is that I introduce virgins in Nicot cages and leave them overnight before releasing them (none have attendants in). 9 times out of 10, they just walk calmly onto the comb with no aggression at all.
It's always difficult to establish which way is best. If you were doing large numbers of introductions, you may feel differently about it. To put it in perspective, I lost 1 out of a batch of 30 I just introduced. Obviously, if something works for you though, use it.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

That video seemed like they were very aggressive to me. The problem with all these videos is that the person who shot them never says if the introduction was successful, or not.

Thanks. I've never tried introduced a queen to a full hive before (only introduced one other queen before). This looked too excited to me though I could see no sign of trying to sting. I didn't risk letting her out and set up a nuc with 2 brood frames and bees, releasing her 2 days later as the fondant plug still hadn't been eaten away. Nuc quite depleted of foragers.

Will report back but a sample of one introduction doesn't prove anything.

 

[madasafish]

Never had a queen rejected so far but I have also never seen that kind of activity on a cage.
I would assume it is aggression due to numbers and general agitation

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Thanks. I hadn't stirred them up. Opened the hive gingerly following an aggressive response to me 2 days previous.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

(trying new forum)
Queen introduction failed. Test frame, they are making emergency cells. United on top of queen-right colony.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The result of my queen rearing for this year is in this cage with attendants. Has been for 4 days since I killed the old queen in a mature colony, across 8/9 frames.

So did you put the queen in her cage into the hive immediately on dispatching the old one, or have they been without a queen for four days?

I have never removed attendants from an introduction cage and never had a problem. This seems to be another needless practice in beekeeping that continue to confuse the less experienced beeks!

 

[Flyinstructor]

You say was the cage plus attendants? I hope you removed the attendants before placing the cage on the top bars!!
If not this is aggression. They are trying to kill the attendants!!!

I have successfully introduced many queens (using my own introduction cage which covers approx 20% of a full brood frame) and I always leave a few attendants with the new queen. IMO If the colony has a queen or does not like the new queen they will reject and kill her regardless of how long she is held in a cage. I believe a few attendants make little difference and (like combining colonies) adopt colony scent quickly and actually help the queen settle and start laying. I believe what is essential Is to ensure the colony definitely does not have an existing queen and that it has been queenless for at least half a day. With a large introduction cage which I press into the drawn comb, I find the colony will eat into the cage within a few days and “release“ the queen. I have not had the courage to walk a new queen into a full colony but did try with a small nuc, it ended badly and I have not tried a repeat.
i made my own oblong cage using mesh wire (4mm I think) which I folded and soldered, I also Incorporate a small 2cm square gate). Using wire snips i left mesh legs at intervals for better grip. The cage is approx 3cm deep and is pressed in about 1 cm leaving a 2cm space. I also incorporated an approx 20% double mesh area In order to ensure queen had a refuge area if the colony Is initially too aggressive. I usually check progress after 24 hrs and in the majority Of cases (nearly always) you can see things are well (I.e bees on outside of cage they are trying to feed and groom the queen) . The advantage of a large introduction cage is that the queen settles quickly and normally starts laying within 24 hours and I believe this assists introduction. The only hassle is that you need space between introduction cage and next frame which often means temporarily removing a frame from the brood Box.I use a spare drawn frame with cage already in place for the introduction. This can be a super frame if that all you have available. Make sure it is drawn comb and not just foundation otherwise the colony will eat into the cage within a few hours!

Finally, all colonies are different and some strains of honey bee are more tolerant and easier to re-queen than others. I give you my finding gained from experience with my colonies. No offence, criticism or dispute is intended. I would also not dispute Brian that leaving attendants in a small introduction cage can cause problems in some colonies, although I never did and largely agree with jeff33. The one thing I have found is that get two beekeepers in discussion and you will have at least 3 opinions!. As an aside I stopped requeening through Introduction (except if I want particular genetic stock) I now just remove the old queen wait a few days, remove any queen cells which have appeared and introduce a frame with eggs from my preferred genetic stock (or some queen cups with grafted eggs). This gives added benefit that it is cheaper, removes risk of disease * spread and you can harvest some spare queen cells if you want set up more nucs quickly. [* many queens are still imported from disease rife areas! and I carefully check any frame and colony I use as donor material] Best wishes to you all.

 

[Erichalfbee]

In my limited experience orange bees will accept most queens. Black bees are more picky and aggressive bees difficult

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Day 0, end of June. 2018 queen killed off in National brood box. Bad chalkbrood. Poor brood pattern across 9 frames. Slow to grow and gathered v little honey, incomplete super above.
(I had used this colony to store 2 frames with QCs from another colony 2 days previous. Cut out these QCs and put into mating nucs once mated queen removed. Did they think they were swarming?)

+ 1 hour added mated queen in cage with 4? attendants between middle frames in 11 frame brood box. (Open brood in mating nuc, later capped normally as worker so had mated)


+ 2 days tried to open colony but they poured out. Mad as hell so I retreated. Not a difficult colony to deal with normally.

+ 4 days wearing 2 beesuits and gloves taped to the sleeves they were OK. Took video of them mobbing the cage.
Removed emergency queen cells. Think I shook bees from frames to be sure.
Made up 3 frame nuc, 2 brood + one stores and added cage, removing tab. Shook in another frame of bees. ?

+ 6 days check queen out of cage. Old fondant not eaten through so opened the cage and watched her walk off down the comb. Nuc short of bees so added 2 more frames from colony.

+11 days recombine nuc into middle of colony. Couldn't see any eggs or open brood. (my guess is that by this time she was gone. Maybe I damaged her getting her into the cage. ? Not done this much before.)

+ 23 days check for brood, none so gave them a frame of eggs and + 26 days emergency QCs produced. United on top of another colony.

The 2 queens are related cousins, local mongrels. New queen's mother had been mated away from this apiary.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Next time I'm going to make up the nuc first and leave queenless for a day at least rather than try to immediately start introduction into a full colony.
Problem is I don't have spare nucs. I had to promote the occupants of the nuc up into a full hive to reuse it for introduction.

 

[Swn58]

I have never removed attendants from an introduction cage and never had a problem. This seems to be another needless practice in beekeeping that continue to confuse the less experienced beeks!

I used to remove attendants. I found it stressful for both the bees and me though! I introduced two queens this year with attendants. Getting back to the subject; it certainly looks aggressive behavior to me. I laid one of my cages on the top of the frames of their new home for a few minutes last week. About a dozen bees came to see what was happening, crawling over the cage. They just seem to give the incumbents a 'sniff over!'

 

[straightman21]

For what it's worth, I've introduced a number of queens over a number of years and have had only one failure. I have always left the colony queenless for at least 6 hours [you can hear them become agitated by then!] [on this note, I have noticed that when you drop a swarm into a Nuc, it takes between four and five minutes for the queen pheromone to start being noticed outside the nuc and in a similar way, the old queen pheromone can linger in a colony for some time, especially if it has plenty of Supers on, hence the six hour delay]. I've always had attendants in the cage with the new Queen. In out apiaries when I've run short of time / kit I have sprayed an air freshener into the receiving hive and on to the new queen [from a distance so as not to wet her], popped her in without a cage and this has always worked to date. A local beekeeper of very many years standing merely dipped any new queen in runny honey and put her straight in on the basis that the bees would clean her up and therefore accept her. I've never tried it but it worked for him.