What's your re-queening practice?

[Karol]

Hi, just interested to know how forum members approach re-queening. Would be very grateful for any input/comments.

Thanks

 

[Chris B]

None/all of the above.

With clipped queens the majority disappear before they get to be 2 years old, so the colony gets a new introduced queen then. Poor and old queens also replaced in autumn on a smaller scale.
"Only on the loss of incumbent queen" implies a rarity, but the opposite is true.

 

[Madge]

I think the last two questions should have been combined into one. I replace drone-laying queens, but I also replace lost queens or provide the colony with queen cells to create their own. No beekeeper can choose between those two options as an 'only' answer. We all do both.(Or 'under-performing' should have been clarified a bit more: you just think she's failing, or is she failing -being a drone layer.)

Kitta

 

[Tom Bick]

Apart from the big boys I suspect the vast majority let the bees do it for themselves.

 

[DanBee]

Where's the option for "When the neonoics damage them"...?

 

[Goran]

Among other reasons, when I see colony isn't advancing or unacceptable brood pattern (scatter), I replace the queen as soon as possible.
I read how one beekeeper made Senior Apartment for old queens cause he respect them too much to just kill the queen..

 

[For want of a better word]

Where is the question... when the discoidal shift is not -10 to 0 degrees, the Cubital index 1 to 1.9 and the Hantel index 0.6 to 0.923 ?

 

[clv101]

I see a few companies out there advertising mated queens for sale at around £30 each. Who buys these? I imagine, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the folk operating hundreds of hives raise their own and that the small-timers with just a few hives just let their bees raise new queens as required.

I'm struggling to see the market for £30 queens delivered through the post. Do a lot of people buy queens in this way?

 

[Chris B]

I'm struggling to see the market for £30 queens delivered through the post. Do a lot of people buy queens in this way?

I think plenty get bought by people who think their hive is queenless, when actually there's a virgin there.

Apart from that a bought queen from a specialist breeder will usually be more productive, less swarmy, and better tempered than a queen raised in your colony. They may also be available early season, allowing early splits that can avoid swarming to a large degree.
I would estimate queens bought in the autumn from a breeder will give me on average 30lb more honey the following season, and they last 2 years.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I've bought a queen or two from Hivemaker (and excellent they are too....they even came with a long explanatory chat for the novice

 

[For want of a better word]

I think plenty get bought by people who think their hive is queenless, when actually there's a virgin there.

Apart from that a bought queen from a specialist breeder will usually be more productive, less swarmy, and better tempered than a queen raised in your colony. They may also be available early season, allowing early splits that can avoid swarming to a large degree.
I would estimate queens bought in the autumn from a breeder will give me on average 30lb more honey the following season, and they last 2 years.

hyvät hyssykät as Finnman would say !

And the drones from such will cause chaos in beekeeping neighbours who have the skills to breed their own!

im lieu of a tongue in cheek icon!before every one expounds

hyvät hyssykät!!


​

 

[Beanwood]

I think plenty get bought by people who think their hive is queenless, when actually there's a virgin there.

Apart from that a bought queen from a specialist breeder will usually be more productive, less swarmy, and better tempered than a queen raised in your colony. ....

I considered buying one from HM last year, primarily for temperament, but he managed to talk me out of it.
I'm still interested in 'trying one', as two of mine are a bit 'pingy', and I'd like to experience the difference.

 

[Karol]

Where's the option for "When the neonoics damage them"...?

Why can't you just keep it parked where it belongs?

 

[VEG]

what about the option of letting them re-queen themselves?

 

[Karol]

what about the option of letting them re-queen themselves?

I didn't include supercedure because I figured it to be 'largely' devoid of physical input from the beek. I assumed that if the preference was to allow colonies to re-queen themselves that the beek would only then intercede if the incumbent queen wasn't performing satisfactorily or was lost and not naturally replaced.

 

[DanBee]

Why can't you just keep it parked where it belongs?

So it's not a thread prompted by the recent discussion of neonics, queen failure, and queen replacement? Sorry, perhaps I'm just learning to see neonics behind every issue, just as others do...

 

[Luminos]

So it's not a thread prompted by the recent discussion of neonics, queen failure, and queen replacement? Sorry, perhaps I'm just learning to see neonics behind every issue, just as others do...

 

[Karol]

So it's not a thread prompted by the recent discussion of neonics, queen failure, and queen replacement? Sorry, perhaps I'm just learning to see neonics behind every issue, just as others do...

You may be obsessed with being anti-anti-neonic but there's an appropriate place in the forum for you to express your obsession - so stop contaminating the rest of the forum.

 

[mbc]

I try and do all my requeening before taking the bees up to the ling

 

[Finman]

I didn't include supercedure because I figured it to be 'largely' devoid of physical input from the beek. I assumed that if the preference was to allow colonies to re-queen themselves that the beek would only then intercede if the incumbent queen wasn't performing satisfactorily or was lost and not naturally replaced.

Supercedure is often reson from problems of queen. So you continue a family of problematic queen,

Second is that when bees change them selves the queens, it has no selection.

I have left many time supercedes queens, but mostly I have regretted that.


"devoid of physical input from the beek" - oh dear. Avoid hive nursing? And advertising that miserable habit?

.