Re-Queening my Hive

[Craig W.]

I bought the hive I have last spring as a package. From all that I have read, I do not feel the queen is the best she could be, maybe with packages they put inferior queens, got to get rid of them some how?

I want to split what I have, put the split in the front yard, which will be about 4 acers away, then kill the queen in the home hive and let both re-queen naturally.

Good or bad idea?

[Panhandle Bee man]

Right now not a good idea. Your hive probably doesn't have the number of bees you think it does, and the number is dwindling every day (lack of daylight). Also the number of drones out flying is low. Plus you are starting into the period of unpredicatable weather, and with one really cold night you could end with no live queen cells. Another factor is that the quality of the pollen is low at this time of the year, so queens raised now even from the best of queen mothers have a good chance of being poor queens. Also daughters very rarely outperform their mothers unless you were raising hybreds

My suggestion is to wait, start feeding 1:1 syrup after 1 Jan. At the end of January add the new brood box to your hive (right above your existing brood box). Letting the big hive start to draw out the foundation, then split the hive around the 1st of March. Also I wouldn't move the split across your property.

[ December 07, 2006, 12:35 AM: Message edited by: Panhandle Bee man ]

[Craig W.]

Sorry, I meant I would do this next March or April.