Requeen by an egg?

[forestbee]

Greeting all,

I wonder if I have queenless hive with no egg, what happened if I put one cup with an egg in it in this hive? Will they raise a queen out of it? If so what quality of a queen can I expect? And can I use this as a requeening method?


Thanks and Regards,

ForestBee

[bjerm2]

Yes you can and it would be the best fed queen. All the bees would concentrate on that one egg. I would just before the queen emerges give the bees a frame of brood other wise when she goes off on her mateing flight they might follow her to a new location. You don't want them to be demoralize.
Dan

[forestbee]

I was thinking of giving the cup without any brood, just from my graftless kit put it on a frame top bar.

Here is the steps I was think to follow,

1- kill the queen.
2- wait 4 or 5 days until for all the eggs to hatch, and open the hive and destroy all the queen cells.
3- wait for another 2 days then put a frame top bar with one egg in the middle of the hive.


Any thoughts,

Thanks a lot.

[bjerm2]

Save the old queen incase something goes wrong. This way you have a quick fix other wise if the virgin gets killed (eaten by a bird, dragon fly, etc.) when she goes out to mate your not calling everyone up for a queen. Put the old one in a cage with some workers. This is just a back up but my experience tell me to be careful. Been in a lurch before and I don't like it. The rest of your idea is good. Just save the old queen just in case. Besides she won't take up all that much room.
Dan

[forestbee]

Thanks a lot, so what kind of environment is suitable to keep the queen in a cage outside the hive (specially this will take few days)? and how should I feed her and her attendants?

Thanks,

[Michael Bush]

Make some candy, if there isn't any. Put them in a dark, quiet, room temperature place. Give them a drop of water every morning and evening.

Or just take a frame of bees and brood and put it in a nuc until you're happy with everything. And maybe just leave her there for spare parts.

[Michael Bush]

I'd give them a larva, not an egg (wait four days from when you first confined the queen). I'd give them two just to be safe. Sometimes one doesn't make it.

[forestbee]

Thanks Michael, I will give them two eggs, the reason I was thinking to give them only one is to be sure the new queen is well feed.

Sorry for all the questions but why you would prefer giving them a larva not any egg?

Best regards,

[Michael Bush]

First, that's how you graft, how you do any cell plug system (Jenter, Nicot, EZ-Queen etc). You let the egg hatch and they JUST start feeding it and then you graft/transfer. They are MUCH more likely to care for it if you do that.

It goes like this:

0 Close breeder queen in Jenter box. CONCEPT: This is so that the queen will lay in the cell cups and we will know the age of the eggs/larvae.

1 Release queen from Jenter box. CONCEPT: We are done with the queen laying and she is not excluded from the cell plugs in the box so that we know the age.

4 Transfer larvae from Jenter to cell cups. CONCEPT: The larvae are now the right age to transfer and the bees are now queenless enough to raise queens. We put them in the cups to convert them to queen cells.

6 See if queen cups are started.

8 Cells capped.

15-16 Queens emerge. Note: small cell queens may emerge earlier or not. “Enlarged” queens may be on time or a day or two late.

22 First possible day to fly

25 First possible day to mate

27 Still mating

28 First day we may find eggs. Look for eggs. Don’t panic if there aren’t any. Weather can set things back. Check again every couple of days. Also don’t panic if there are two eggs in a cell for a couple of days. It should straighten out after a couple of days. If it doesn’t then you can panic.

[forestbee]

So After I release the queen from the Jenter box (Nicot in my case) I just leave it in the mother hive for 4 days? also did you notice when the queen will start lay
after you put her in the box (just if I want few cells to try with how long should she be in there?)

Regards,

[Michael Bush]

This is a very exact science. You need to leave the queen in the box no longer than 24 hours. Unless you remove her from the hive the box is in, I try to make sure it's layed up full so I know the age of all the eggs because she didn't lay some later.

Let's say you put her IN the box on Sunday (day 0). You let her out on Monday (day 1) or you can check in 12 hours and see if it's layed full. Then you transfer the eggs on Thursday (day 4). This is THREE days since you let her out and FOUR days since you confined her. You can check at 3 1/2 days and there may be some larvae that have hatched and are ready to transfer, but almost all will be ready at 4 days. So, in other words, if you only want a couple of larvae to transfer, and you put the queen in early on Sunday morning you could check for larvae on Wednesday late afternoon.

Also to encourage them to feed the queens, it's helpful to have some open brood on each side or at least one side of the queen cells. It doesn't have to be a lot, but some draws nurse bees there to feed the young and they will be more likely to feed the queens.

When I'm setting up a cell starter to rear 28 queens in one box, I set it up with 10 frames like this:

Nectar/honey- Brood- Brood- Pollen- Eggs- Cell Bar- Eggs- Pollen- Brood- Nectar/honey.

The nectar/honey is so they don't run out of food. The pollen is so they have plenty to make royal jelly. Since they won't have any field bees the way I'm doing it, I need to make sure there is no shortage of resources. The brood is so the emerging brood will continue to replentish the hive during the process. The eggs are to draw the nurse bees to the area where the cell bar is so they will be feeding and the queen cells are right there needing to be fed too.

Then I shake ALL the bees from the hive into this one box (I find the queen so she doesn't end up in it). That way the nurse bees will stay and the field bees will go back to the old hive.

I mention all of this to get the principles across. I realize you're just putting a couple of cells in a small hive. But anything to tip the scale in the queen cell's favor is helpful.