Finding the queen

[Hobie]

I hate to admit this, but I have never seen the queen in my hive. Now I am getting a weak colony/lots of stores from a friend to combine with my stronger colony/low on stores one. I am assuming that the stronger colony queen is the preferable one to have. Should I try to find the other queen (which may take quite some time, with my skill level) and dispatch her, or just let the bees take care of it?

[iddee]

If the temp is 70 or above, try half-heartedly to find and dispatch the queen.

If the temp. is 65 or below, just combine and let them sort it out.

[tecumseh]

off with her head I say, no matter what the temperature. I would not randomly wager the life of a good queen for one that I had already determined was unacceptable.

there has been a number of treads and suggestions in regards to locating the queen. if you have a queen excluder nail this to the bottom of an empty box and lean same up aginist front side of hive with desirable queen. smoke both heavily. shake hive with less desirable queen thru queen excluder box. keep smokin' em heavily driving bee into new hive (desirable queen). keep watching the corners and edges of queen excluder box for the less desirable queen to show herself.

[iddee]

>>off with her head I say, no matter what the temperature. I would not randomly wager the life of a good queen for one that I had already determined was unacceptable.<<

Tec, Hobie is a first year beek. She is combining a hive that has little population, yet still managed to store enough for winter, with a high population hive which could not gather enough to winter on. Now which is the "best" queen. The one that can't pruduce population, or the one that can't produce product?
This time of year I would not open the hives in cold weather long enough for a novice to find a queen for the first time in their life and chill the fall brood for the difference in queens.
The young bees hatching now are too important to the hive to chance killing them.
I would just let them choose and think about requeening in the spring.

Although, if the temps. are high, the one queen idea is desirable, and the experience for her would be good.

[Ross]

Take two frames and place in a box, take two more frames and place in another box, etc. Place an empty box on the hive stand. Now go through the two frame boxes.

[jamiev]

Ross, If I understand your method correctly,what you are saying is divide the frames into more viewable segments so you can isolate the one with the queen faster and she will not likely have a chance to escape to the mass of bees to hide while you are looking? I may try that next spring

[tecumseh]

thanks for the added information iddee. still if I had a queen that I had predetermined was unacceptable I would not randomly throw the two together and wish and hope luck is on my side. at this location a hive that cannot produce bees is certain to be consumed by moth and shb in a short while. a hive that produces product without bees is definitely waning since the additional store simply suggest that the are not consuming that much via brood rearing.

Another option would be a paper combine with a queen excluder in between queens. often time I find both queens will begin laying at an acceptable rate when the population is leveled. if you place the weaker queen on top and keep rotating the brood down, when the air temp falls to the tight clustering level the old queen will be left topside to freeze.

[Hobie]

Well, I actually did find the queen in the weaker hive as I was shaking the bees from the upper super into the lower super. However, I was not quick enough and she vanished between the frames and I did not want to cause any more disturbance before I put them in my car. (Note: not pick-up truck!) When I got them home, I looked through the frames... twice... but could not find her. There were lots of drones, so this one may be a drone layer.

By this time my bee yard was a veritable tornado of confused and angry bees from my first hive (which I moved), robbing bees from the wild colony (because I pulled some nearly empty frames out of the first hive and replaced with full frames from the new colony, and they found the partials), and more confused and angry bees from the new colony. So I put down newspaper, hoisted the new colony onto the old, and left.

Bottom line, the two queens will have to battle it out, and I will have to trust to nature to do the right thing.

Note to MB: After stacking the new colony 3-deeps high, my back hereby heartily agrees with the "all mediums" set up.

[ October 06, 2006, 08:01 AM: Message edited by: Hobie ]

[sierrabees]

Hobie:

Based on my past experience of manipulating hives in the fall, if you can locate a copy of an old silent film of the Keystone Cops it would make a good training film for the job you just tackled. Over the years I have discovered two axioms that apply to beekeeping.

1. Bees can overcome my most stupid mistakes and thrive.
2. When I think I've done everything right and it looks like everything is working with precision clockwork, next month it will probably turn into disaster such as a swarm, a lost queen, or even a deadout.

The above are the reasons why we get hooked on beekeeping. It never has a chance to get dull.

[Hobie]

> "...Keystone Cops..."

That is so applicable, I'm still chuckling. :D Although sometimes it's maybe more like "Benny Hill" with Yakety Sax playing in the background

[Michael Bush]

Finding a queen:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenspotting.htm