Jif5
New Bee
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2012
- Messages
- 10
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- West of London
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 3
Hello,
I am very pleased that I have managed to successfully requeen a layer working hive. As a relative newcomer I read up as much as possible on the forum on solutions, but expected very little success as the colony seemed on a hopeless downward spiral.
If anyone is interested my technique was as follows:
At night move the layer working colony about 30 feet away from the original position.
I then positioned a stand, floor, new brood box, lid etc with two frames of drawn comb containing some honey and undrawn out foundation in the position of the old hive. I then left this for two days to allow any foraging workers to fly from the laying worker hive and return to the new hive.
On the night of day two I opened the laying worker hive and shook out and brushed off all the frames off bees into a patch of long grass (this was only 5 ft or so feet away from the laying worker hive and it was a warm night) I then closed the hive up again and left it in its new position of another day.
On night three I repeated the shake out process again on the drones and workers who had found there way back to this hive. After the second shake out I removed the old hive completely and put any drawn out frames that did not contain worker brood into the new hive ( in the original position)
The following day I introduced a purchased laying queen in a cage into the new hive and left her for 4 days with the candy plug covered. On day 5 I opened the candy plug and let the bees release her. Three days later I carefully checked to see if she had been released. As a very small pice of candy remained I removed this and helped her out. She wandered off down into the frames.
Today I have just checked and she is happily wanting around and been accepted by the hive. eggs present and I shall now leave her for 10 days and see how the larvae develop.
I am surprised this worked, but would be interested to know if any of the forum members think that shaking out at night ( twice) will have helped my chances?
Thanks
I am very pleased that I have managed to successfully requeen a layer working hive. As a relative newcomer I read up as much as possible on the forum on solutions, but expected very little success as the colony seemed on a hopeless downward spiral.
If anyone is interested my technique was as follows:
At night move the layer working colony about 30 feet away from the original position.
I then positioned a stand, floor, new brood box, lid etc with two frames of drawn comb containing some honey and undrawn out foundation in the position of the old hive. I then left this for two days to allow any foraging workers to fly from the laying worker hive and return to the new hive.
On the night of day two I opened the laying worker hive and shook out and brushed off all the frames off bees into a patch of long grass (this was only 5 ft or so feet away from the laying worker hive and it was a warm night) I then closed the hive up again and left it in its new position of another day.
On night three I repeated the shake out process again on the drones and workers who had found there way back to this hive. After the second shake out I removed the old hive completely and put any drawn out frames that did not contain worker brood into the new hive ( in the original position)
The following day I introduced a purchased laying queen in a cage into the new hive and left her for 4 days with the candy plug covered. On day 5 I opened the candy plug and let the bees release her. Three days later I carefully checked to see if she had been released. As a very small pice of candy remained I removed this and helped her out. She wandered off down into the frames.
Today I have just checked and she is happily wanting around and been accepted by the hive. eggs present and I shall now leave her for 10 days and see how the larvae develop.
I am surprised this worked, but would be interested to know if any of the forum members think that shaking out at night ( twice) will have helped my chances?
Thanks