What is your experience of supercedure?

[Busybee123]

I'm interested in supercedure, and your experiences of it in the real world. Feel free to use any or all of the following questions as a starting point for discussion. I want to try and tap into the vast beekeeping experience on this forum to try and learn more about supercedure.

How do you identify it?

When you find queen cells, how do you come to the conclusion that they are supercedure cells and therefore make the decision NOT to do an AS and to leave them there?

The books mostly agree that the signs of supercedure are a small number of queen cells in the central area of a frame late in the season (July/August), but is that all we have to go on or is there any way to be more confident in correctly identifying supercedure?

How can you manage it?

Is there any way of managing the supercedure process (and minimising the downside if the bees end up swarming)?

It has been suggested that you clip the old queen, so that if they do end up swarming you hopefully won't lose them....seems like a good idea!

Does anyone have experience of supercedure gone wrong (i.e. the bees ended up swarming instead)?

If so, what did you do?

How long does it last?

PH says he knew of a case where the supercedure lasted for 18 months?

Is this typical?

How long does it normally last?

How common is it?

If supercedure is more common than we all think it is then I assume that we may well prevent it from taking place in many cases simply because of the way we are deal with queen cells (i.e. doing an AS).

 

[huntsman666]

I hope someone has all day to help you.

 

[oliver90owner]

You need to read more widely and consider the bees. I don't think for one moment supercedure to be limited to the dates given.

Asking if the extreme, isolated, single experience (just the one case in umpteen years) of Poly Hive is 'typical' is just a little naive? Of course it will not be 'typical'! Further, lots on here would not even have noticed two queens co-existing - they would not be expecting it and likely not disturbing the colony while it was going on.

For those that regularly re-queen by buying in will skew any statistics if they were to take part in the lste summer supercedures.

Anecdotally, queens are being superceded 'soon after introduction' much more than in the past, so that seems to be at odds with the books. More imported stocks will likely exacerbate that problem, as would poorly matured nucs delivered to the end user after being thrown together the day before despatch.

History of the queen or breeding line is a good start for any considerations. In other words - know your bees. How common? 'Most' queens only swarm once. That is a good starting point.

RAB

 

[Busybee123]

I hope someone has all day to help you.

I'm just interested in your experience of supercedure.

I don't expect anyone to have all the answers!

 

[Poly Hive]

If I wanted to write the article I would. I just don't have the time on here at this time.

PH

 

[huntsman666]

BusyBee, perhaps if you broke your request down to single questions at a time, it would be easier for people to respond.

 

[Midland Beek]

It starts with a rash ...

I suggest you buy yourself a good beekeeping book.

 

[Busybee123]

Hey look, I'm only trying to stimulate a discussion!

Saying I should read a book is not terribly helpful.

I thought the idea of this forum was to discuss and share experiences.

 

[Cazza]

Hey look, I'm only trying to stimulate a discussion!

Saying I should read a book is not terribly helpful.

I thought the idea of this forum was to discuss and share experiences.

With the odd exception, I would agree with you Busybee, the comments you received were a little snotty, especially as you were asking for real life experiences rather than information gleaned from a book.

My personal experience would indicate that the frequency of supercedure has increased over the past 15 odd years with the bees I care for.

As for how to tell whether I am seeing supercedure or swarming when only a few cells are involved, I actually think that's quite tricky. I know that I tend to err on the side of supercedure at this time of the year. This has also proved to be a bad decision from time to time. For me it doesn't matter too much as I always have more hives than I really need so i can afford to make mistakes.

I am also sure that I wouldn't notice if two queens were running at once as I don't mark all my queens and don't spend my time looking for then either.

Cazza

 

[Busybee123]

As for how to tell whether I am seeing supercedure or swarming when only a few cells are involved, I actually think that's quite tricky. I know that I tend to err on the side of supercedure at this time of the year. This has also proved to be a bad decision from time to time. For me it doesn't matter too much as I always have more hives than I really need so i can afford to make mistakes.

Thanks Cazza for your reply.

So you basically make your decision and live with the consequences - it's not an exact science!

You and RAB both mention that supercedure is becoming more common and RAB gives a few possible reasons why, which is very interesting.

You have been very helpful - thank you.

 

[Cazza]

So you basically make your decision and live with the consequences - it's not an exact science!

.

That's the basis of my bodgit approach to beekeeping, well, life come to that!

I spend my work life making logical well thought through decisions. Perhaps this rubs off in my beekeeping but I'm nowhere near as logical about bees as Rab seems to be.

Now if someone could come along and teach us all how to scientifically recognise supercedure so I don't make any more bad decisions well.....
Cazza

 

[Busybee123]

You've hit the nail on the head Cazza.

Bees are unpredictable and trying to analyse what they do and the reasons for doing it only ends in frustration.

 

[MJBee]

I have only had two confirmed cases of supercedure.

Case 1 - evidence of a failing queen, the ratio of drone:worker brood swung sharply towards drone so I decided to requeen. There was a delay of some 3 weeks while I waited for a queen to prove herself in an apidea. When I returned to remove the failing queen I found an unmarked queen and the old marked queen. That was in June and mother and daughter went into the winter together, by spring the old queen had gone.

Case 2 - A colony changed over 14 days from calm and docile to bees from h**l. A full inspection was impossible. The decision was made to squish the queen, this was done. 7 days later check for queen cells - non found???. given a frame of eggs from a calm colony. 7 days later still no queen cells but eggs were found??? Deduction - the reason for the change of temperament must have been a queen they were not happy with and supercedure must have been started soon after the temper change giving a 4 week period for them to rear a queen and for her to mate and begin laying.

Management - The bees sorted their own problems I was just a bemused spectator
How common - only 2 - that I know of- in 30 years

 

[Busybee123]

I have only had two confirmed cases of supercedure.

Case 1 - evidence of a failing queen, the ratio of drone:worker brood swung sharply towards drone so I decided to requeen. There was a delay of some 3 weeks while I waited for a queen to prove herself in an apidea. When I returned to remove the failing queen I found an unmarked queen and the old marked queen. That was in June and mother and daughter went into the winter together, by spring the old queen had gone.

Case 2 - A colony changed over 14 days from calm and docile to bees from h**l. A full inspection was impossible. The decision was made to squish the queen, this was done. 7 days later check for queen cells - non found???. given a frame of eggs from a calm colony. 7 days later still no queen cells but eggs were found??? Deduction - the reason for the change of temperament must have been a queen they were not happy with and supercedure must have been started soon after the temper change giving a 4 week period for them to rear a queen and for her to mate and begin laying.

Management - The bees sorted their own problems I was just a bemused spectator
How common - only 2 - that I know of- in 30 years

Thanks MJBee for sharing your experiences.

Case 1 - obviously you and the bees were thinking along the same lines! I'm surprised you noticed the new queen when you went to remove the marked queen, especially if you had no reason to suspect supercedure had taken place. Interesting that both queens were working together for at least a number of months.

Case 2 - Strange, but your deduction seems spot on. I wonder what triggered the sudden change of temper? Must have been sudden failure of some sort.

Assuming I understand you correctly, it's interesting that in both cases you were not aware that supercedure was taking place until the new queen was laying. This makes me wonder how often beekeepers mistake supercedure for swarming. Had you seen queen cells, would you have taken a different approach?

In my own (very limited) experience, I find that sometimes when I try and take action to correct a "problem", it is all too easy to take the wrong action based on the wrong assumption and to end up make things worse.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Crg]

How long does it last?

PH says he knew of a case where the supercedure lasted for 18 months?

Do you mean how long does the supercedure queen last?

 

[Busybee123]

Do you mean how long does the supercedure queen last?

Hi Crg,

no sorry, I mean how long are both the old and the new queens in the colony together?

PH knows of a case where both queens were in the colony together for 18 months. Apparently this is not typical, and is actually very unusual.

 

[Poly Hive]

Part of the reason I mentioned this instance is to high light just how unusual it is. Not supercedure per se but this one instance of 18 months.

From a man who at the time was running 350 boxes and had built up to that number slowly over a lifetime it was a unique situation.

Obviously if you can identify and breed from sup stock it increases the amount of sups you see over time.

Mine ran at some 60% give or take. Swarmy units were re-queened by ones from the sup strain and so it went. Bear in mind at the time I was running AMM.

It is I think more common than most know as most never mark or clip and so how are they able to know?

PH

 

[Crg]

Hi Crg,

no sorry, I mean how long are both the old and the new queens in the colony together?

PH knows of a case where both queens were in the colony together for 18 months. Apparently this is not typical, and is actually very unusual.

Normally, in the bees I keep at the moment, I only see supercedure in queens 3 or more years old and it happens towards the end of the year. The older queens (if I don't remove them to a small nuc) haven't been around the next year.

I had an italian queen once whose colony seemed to love having more than one queen around and they were that way all year. Even if I removed the daughter queen/s, they'd replace her and carry on.

 

[keith pierce]

here are two supersedure cells. one is of a young queen that was not mated properly and is starting to become a drone layer and the other is an old queen the is starting to fail in her third year.
i was checking hives last week and came across two newly hatched queen cells in one hive and the old girl was still in the hive. i did not bother looking for the new queen , but made a note of the hive and will look for her in the spring




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[Busybee123]

Part of the reason I mentioned this instance is to high light just how unusual it is. Not supercedure per se but this one instance of 18 months.

Thanks for your reply PH.

When I asked if this was "typical", I wondered if anyone else had experienced or heard of anything similar. I did not think it would be common, but then who knows?

If a beek have a marked queen in a hive, and he/she sees the marked queen during an inspection he/she is not going to expect to see another queen.

So much of our perception of the world depends on what we expect to see.