Midnight Queens

[East Texas Pine Rooter]

What can you tell me about requeening with midnights? what can i expect?

[Michael Bush]

Midnights don't require anything special.

Do you have a method you are following? Is the hive currently queenright? If it's queenright, I'd remove the queen. You can put her in a nuc with a frame of brood if you want some insurance. Wait overnight. Then put the new queen in still in the cage and come back in two or three days and see how the bees are responding to her. If they are biting at the wire then wait. If they are trying to feed her through the cage, poke a hole in the candy and come back in a couple more days. If she's not out yet, and they still look like they are accepting her, let her out.

[Michael Bush]

BTW Midnites were a hybrid of two caucasian lines. York sold them for a long time. Dadant sold them before that and I was under the impression that Dadant came up with them.

I don't know of anyone actually selling these hybrids anymore but there are Caucasians for sale a few places. There is someone on here advertising "Midnites" which I assume are decended from some Midnites. Perhaps he could shed some light on that.

They tend to do very well in Northern climates and are very gentle and calm. The also like to propolize a lot. The ones I worked with had kind of a sticky proplis they covered everything with. I haven't personally had any, but had a friend who did.

The were very nice bees. I liked them.