Queen introduction

[Karsal]

I have one very aggressive hive that I have purchased a new queen for. I made the hive queenless early yesterday morning and introduced the sealed cage with the queen and six attendants late yesterday evening.
I intended to take the plastic away from the candy end later today 6pm to allow the bees to release here. To my dismay the cage was empty so I closed the hive up and will have to hope for the best.
She was marked so will watch to see if she's killed and ejected.
I had caught the old queen in the morning very easily in a queen clip. Walked about 7ft from the hive and placed her on the top of the adjacent hive. The queen clip was broken and flipped open and released her where she immediately flew into the ferns and was lost.
It's certainly a learning curve but mistakes are made when learning but hopefully one becomes a better beekeeper in the end.
I hope my experience will help someone.

 

[enrico]

Let us know the outcome. You will see eggs soon if she us there.
E

 

[Obee1]

Hope your queen is ok in with the aggresive colony. As for the queen clip I have 3 of the clear plastic hair clip type every one of them broke first time I used it. First two times I requested and got replacements. Now think I'll just buy different ones.

 

[patl]

The queen clip was broken and flipped open and released her

Sounds like we've both learned the same lesson, I've never had any success with queen clips. They're right up there with porter bee escapes as more annoying than useful items for me.

 

[Karsal]

Well unfortunately the queen did not survive. I'll put this down to experience.
Still very aggressive hive so plan B. I assisted in a hive opening of our club bees and I could not believe how calm they were. No smoke needed.
The hive had not been opened the previous week and had swarmed. Five capped queen cells. Left two and removed three. Managed to put one in the aggressive hive at my apiary last week so now waiting for the outcome.

 

[Arfermo]

Queen clips - aka queen squishers most of the time if they work at all.

 

[masterBK]

When requeening agressive colonies with a bought in queen I find it best to take a nucleus the day before from the colony and next day introduce the queen to that using fondant release cage. Give her a week or two to get laying and then the day after dequeening the main colony paper unite the nucleus back to it.

 

[Barbarian]

I've used the Watering Can Method to introduce Queens. It worked OK for me.

Has anyone else tried it ? If so, how did you do it ? Success or not ? Did you just run the Q in or use a cage ?

 

[Obee1]

When requeening agressive colonies with a bought in queen I find it best to take a nucleus the day before from the colony and next day introduce the queen to that using fondant release cage. Give her a week or two to get laying and then the day after dequeening the main colony paper unite the nucleus back to it.

and don't forget to check in on the colony after the newspaper unite that they didn't raise EQC's from any eggs /larva as a virgin could emerge and noble your introduced queen.

Btw barbarian. What is the watering can method?

 

[Barbarian]

Watering Can Method

Open the queenless hive and expose the top bars of the brood box.
Using a fine rose watering can give the bees a good watering.
Introduce the new queen then close up and leave.

I believe the idea is that the workers are busy drying themselves and the comb that they acquire the scent of the new queen and accept her.

I insert the new queen via a Nicot cage with the end plug removed. Instead of the candy plug, I use some lightly scrumpled newspaper. When I was first told of the technique it was said that it is also possible to run the new queen onto the top bars after the watering.