Queen Introduction - Why wait?

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Mabee

House Bee
***
BeeKeeping Supporter
Joined
Feb 4, 2020
Messages
471
Reaction score
450
Location
Scotland
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
8
I have introduced a few new queens to my apiary this year using the push-in cage method, which I find works really well.

The last introduction, due to other commitments meant I had to remove the old Q and introduce the new queen immediately (I had read Michael Palmer does this), I couldn't check on them for 5 days after, which was probably a good thing, but when I did check, she was out the cage and laying away. There were 4 queen cells which I removed but they haven't made any since. So, I will be trying this again in a few weeks as I realise one time is not a real experiment, probably not two either, but just wondering who else has tried this successfully?
 
Op is not clear, did they "run" the new Q in immediately or put it under a cage?
 
When requeening a colony using either a push in or wooden cage, the bees will often make emergency cells. Once the queen is released the cells are usually destroyed by the colony.
hi , may i ask

if you have noticed any relationship between those emergency cells and supercedure cells after ? i kinda mean the more emergency they draw the less the chance supercedure cells apear after......
 
When requeening a colony using either a push in or wooden cage, the bees will often make emergency cells. Once the queen is released the cells are usually destroyed by the colony.
I was looking for information on introducing queens immediately after removing the old queen since i found myself in that situation and had seen your post on another forum saying you did this, I wasn’t sure if you used a push in cage or small queen cage when you did it. Anyway it worked and was much easier and faster than other methods.
 
hi , may i ask

if you have noticed any relationship between those emergency cells and supercedure cells after ? i kinda mean the more emergency they draw the less the chance supercedure cells apear after......
Haven't seen anything relationship. Supercedure would indicate that the bees found my new queen unacceptable. I would expect if so, the supercedure cells would show up weeks or more from introduction.
 
After loosing a queen on introduction with a yellow cage last year, this year I've used a push in cage for 2 days and queens accepted and laying. But I made the 5 frame nucs hopelessly queenless. Belt and braces? Unnecessary?
These are queens that have only been laying for a week (edit: maybe 10 days so you can check capped brood) in mating nucs. Should queen have been laying for longer before introduction?
. . . . Ben
 
After loosing a queen on introduction with a yellow cage last year, this year I've used a push in cage for 2 days and queens accepted and laying. But I made the 5 frame nucs hopelessly queenless. Belt and braces? Unnecessary?
These are queens that have only been laying for a week (edit: maybe 10 days so you can check capped brood) in mating nucs. Should queen have been laying for longer before introduction?
. . . . Ben

you did the safe method

jep you can postpone the hopelesslly Q less part since you introduce a Q from your stock and a non stopped laying one

as long as you can see in those 10 days of laying in mating nucs that the capped brood is workers and also is a good lay one ,np with her age
 
When requeening a colony using either a push in or wooden cage, the bees will often make emergency cells. Once the queen is released the cells are usually destroyed by the colony.
out of interest, do you check after 4 days to ensure this is the case or do you find the bees will remove them?
 
Last edited:

Latest posts

Back
Top