Emergency queens quality...

[forestbee]

I had been told by a breeder couple of years ago that the best quality of a queen is a superseded queen and the worst is the emergency queen and I wonder why?

So if I make a queenless split with eggs and larva will I get a bad queen? Why?

Regards,

[Michael Bush]

For centuries it's been believed that the best quality queen is a swarm queen and the worse is an emergency queen. I think it's all in how they are fed. A strong hive will feed a queen well. A weak one won't. Jay Smith believed it was due to the cocoons in the cell wall of the worker converted to the emergency queen. That the workers could not easily break down the lower wall and that a larva that is floated off the edge into a typical emergency cell doesn't develop quite as well. Jay raised thousands of queens a year and always under the "emergency" impulse. He was quite focused on the quality of those queens.

Another theory is that an emergency queen may not be the correct age. This is the source of the concept of destroying any cells that are capped four days after making then queenless so that any larvae that were too old when started will be eliminated.

>So if I make a queenless split with eggs and larva will I get a bad queen?

Maybe. Maybe not.

> Why?

Becuase everyone believes it's so. smile.gif

If you want to hedge your bets, make sure the hive has plenty of food, plenty of bees (to be available to care for the queens) and destroy any cells that are capped on the fourth day.

[wayacoyote]

> Another theory is that an emergency queen may not be the correct age. This is the source of the concept of destroying any cells that are capped four days after making then queenless so that any larvae that were too old when started will be eliminated.

Bees, as I understand it, are all fed royal jelly for the first 3 days of hatching. On the fourth, the nurse bees stop feeding them royal jelly, except for the ones they are rearing as queens. If the hive gets thrown into an emergency situation, it might try redirecting a 4-day old larvae back to royal jelly. It works but there was a break in its nutrition which is essential to producing a good queen.

As Michael said, it is common practice to remove any queen cells capped on day 4 (these were from 4-day old larve who went a day without royal jelly). The hive is now left with either the cells they are working on or even younger larvae.
Incidentally, checking things closely this day should reveal no-eggs-present if the hive is truly queenless. So two things to look for on the same day.

Waya

[mobees]

Thought a swarm Queen was the best since usually its planned from an early age.

[magnet-man]

It doesn't mater as long as the larva is three days or younger. The quality of the queen is dependent on how it is feed after day three.