Third year queen

[ShinySideUp]

My hives are going into 2018 in which the respective queens will be in their third year and I'm unsure what to do now. Both hives are well-populated and the queens, certainly at the end of last season, appeared fecund but what do I do now? Leave them and let the bees do the business with supercedure if they think it necessary or personally take out the old queens once queen cells start to appear in the spring and let the colonies bring on a new queen while removing excess QC's to avoid swarming?

I think my first year is probably going to turn out my easiest and this second year as a beek may be a little more challenging.

 

[drex]

Certainly agree that year two is more challenging than year one. I do not allow any of my queens to go into third year, unless she has traits I like, in which case she will go into a nuc.
Why not Demaree , with upper entrance, and do a seamless change of queen?
Is the old girl marked? If not it would be an idea to mark her before numbers build up

 

[Anduril]

You could do a demaree if you have the kit, to make queen cells and use them.

 

[For want of a better word]

Monitor the colony for swarming preparations... weather is an important factor.. so with the forcast with snow in it you may need to wait a few weeks before inspections.
Decide what you want from your bees and select queens for rearing with those qualities.
I have productive queens going into their fourth season... personally I think all this re-queening every second season stuff and nonsense comes from breeders trying to sell more queens?
However if you want to keep your pure buckfast strain going that is what you will have to do!

 

[drex]

Keeping younger queens has certainly helped with swarm prevention. As I said earlier, if I like a queen, I will keep her going, but place her in a nucs where she has less work to do.

 

[Swarm]

I have a queen going into her fourth season, no sign of slowing down and lovely bees. I have at least two going into their third season.
I don't replace queens unless there's a reason.

 

[ShinySideUp]

I have productive queens going into their fourth season... personally I think all this re-queening every second season stuff and nonsense comes from breeders trying to sell more queens?
However if you want to keep your pure buckfast strain going that is what you will have to do!

I have a queen going into her fourth season, no sign of slowing down and lovely bees. I have at least two going into their third season.
I don't replace queens unless there's a reason.

Quite so, this is the answer I was hoping for. Demarree, TBH, is a bit advanced for me at the moment, I am too concerned with keeping the buggers alive to worry about more advanced concepts but I will read up on the method and perhaps have a go in spring.

 

[masterBK]

Are these "3" yr old queens marked. If not, how can you be sure they have not been replaced by supersedure sometime over the last couple of years? Even if they are genuine 3 yr olds there may well be a supersedure daughter present in one or more of the hives. If so, then you will only find the daughter queen present when you inspect in spring.

IMHO Demarree is a simple procedure for relatively novice beekeepers to carry out as long as you are strong enough to lift a full brood chamber a few feet off the ground.

 

[For want of a better word]

If they have superceeded I would expect the "new" queens to be slightly darker, given the number of Native Amm colonies in and around that neck of the woods!!