When is best time to replace queens

[swabby]

I have 4 hives 2 russians and 2 Italians. One of the Italian boiled over with bees and made lots of honey .The 2 Italians were purchased this past spring . I purchased 1 russian ,spring before last .It swarmed, I captured the swarm ,placed in a new brood box.
I have been studying on how I can make the 3 hives, little/non producer, hives increase their production next year.
Sorry this is so wordy but , need advice as I am considering replacing with 3 artificial inseminated queens, b-4 next spring.
Please don't make this a breed augment!!!
Regards,swabby

[IndianaHoney]

Well, the best time in my opinion is in the summer or fall. If you have hives that don't produce, but otherwise healthy, it is more likely to be a genetic issue. If you replace her in the spring, then you already have those bad genetics in the spring, and it is likely to affect your spring buildup. However replacing her in the summer with a newly mated queen will give you better genetics going into the winter. On the other hand, Russians are good at overwintering, so if you replace her in the spring, you may have a better chance if that hive getting through this winter first, unless you just replace her with another Russian.

As for replacing with an artificially insiminated queen, that will cost you lots of money, between 100-1000 per queen. Artificially mated queens are usually breeder queens. Production queens are always open mated.

[BigDaddyDS]

If I were to invest in an artificially inseminated queen, I think I'd want as many chips stacked in my favor as possible. By this I mean that I'd want to introduce her during swarm season (late spring until mid-summer). My experience is that the rate of acceptance is highest at this time of year.

But, with the queens that I produce, even though they're selected for traits, I'd insert them into the any hive, anytime of the year, whenever I needed one.

DS

[BjornBee]

I prefer to do requeening in conjunction with doing early summer splits, after the main flow is over. Late June early July. This way you get good quality queens, you can split and not mess up the honey production, and you break the brood cycle at a good time to suppress mites.

I personally do not like fall requeening. But thats in Pennsylvania. Too many things can go wrong. I like to have everything in place by September 1st with laying queens, the equipment installed/changed that will go through winter to allow the bees to adjust accordingly, and let the bees pack away the fall flow uninterrupted.

[Aspera]

I live in an area very similar to Bjorn, and i do mine now, in conjunction with splitting. Go figure.

[BerkeyDavid]

I live in an area very similar to Bjorn, and i do mine now, in conjunction with splitting. Go figure.

I agree, to me now is the perfect time to requeen. Plenty of drones, break in the brood will knock down the mites, and you can evaluate which hives made honey and which didn't. Gives time for the new queen to get up and running going into the winter.

[BEES4U]

$100.00/A.I. queen X 3 = $300.00
$300.oo + shipping = 335.00
It is not an economical concept.
Try to get ahold of The ABC & XYZ of bees and read about the timing of re-queening.
Fall is thought as a good time to replace the old queen as the new queen can lay eggs until the hive shuts her down for wintering. The next spring you will have a young queen for the spring build up.
Regards,
Ernie Lucas Apiaries

[BjornBee]

Lets see....Fall begins September 22. Waiting till then to break the brood cycle, will mean interrupting the fall flow right in the middle of what should be about a three cycle (three 20 day periods) brood period to have enough bees going into winter. For those wanting to treat for mites along with requeening, pulling the queen PRIOR to the fall brood cycle is best suggested. You treat prior to putting the new queen in.

I think anyone waiting till late September to find out a queen did not take, waiting that late to treat, and thinking the bees have enough time to recover if you screw up the brood cycle........Go for it! I'll be right here reading the stories come late fall of panicked proportions, and then the other stories of high colony loss about mid-February. ;)

Many now suggest that waiting till after September first to treat is missing the boat. that you knock down the mites BEFORE the fall brood cycle starts so HEALTHY bees are raised. So if this is the case, and I agree, treating prior to fall and in conjunction with requeening, makes a lot of sense.

Let me know if anyone actually is raising their own queens with those splits in fall. This could get interesting.... ;) Expecting good quality at that time are you. Keep talking.... ;) I'm all ears!

Of course my comments are for those actually going through "winter" and a "fall". Pennsylvania is a little different than Swabby in La.

[sc-bee]

>Of course my comments are for those actually going through "winter" and a "fall". Pennsylvania is a little different than Swabby in La.

I agree we really don't have a winter:D! But boy what a summer:eek:!

Does make a difference on requeen timing, wouldn't it Bj?

[Bud Dingler]

are intended for breeding. Most don't lay more then a few months and are supersceded.

I raise my own queens and in may and early June we make our regular nucs and expand them out to full 9 frame deeps once they are mated and laying. These nucs or really hives go on to make a super of honey or two.

Then around July 10th we start raising more queens for fall requeening of dud hives that have previous years queens and not made any real honey crop or install into queenless hives we find harvesting honey.

I install queen cells in 4 frame mating nucs before Aug first (in north central Wisco). Once they are laying in 4 frame nucs I will requeen dud hives before Sept 10th and introduce the laying queen from the nuc. Minor interruption in brood laying usually. Another option is to sometimes pinch off bad queens and just replace with queen cells too in Aug if we have extra cells and find bad hives. This saves a return trip to install a mated queen. Use this method on the out yards farthest from home.

This way we have mostly good queens going into winter. I don't care to over winter 4 frame nucs and rather requeen bad hives.

Any other duds get combo'd in late Oct early Nov and let the two queens work it out.

Bottom Line : why keep a queen thats no good and taking up space?

[Aspera]

$100.00/A.I. queen X 3 = $300.00
$300.oo + shipping = 335.00
It is not an economical concept.
Try to get ahold of The ABC & XYZ of bees and read about the timing of re-queening.
Fall is thought as a good time to replace the old queen as the new queen can lay eggs until the hive shuts her down for wintering. The next spring you will have a young queen for the spring build up.
Regards,
Ernie Lucas Apiaries

I should qualify that for me, requeening means removing the queens from my strongest two colonies and ordering 2 A.I. queens from CA. These are added to "splits" consisting of 3 mediums.

[BjornBee]

The one point I missed, for those in the north, are the availability of queens. For those wanting perhaps northern stock, wanting to support the local bee industry, and those wanting from particular breeders, then late summer or early fall may be at a time when its hard to find queens. Yes, anyone can order from warm climate areas when queens are not available elsewhere in the north. But I am finding many who want something other than whats been offered lately from traditional sources. So if your not raising your own queens, and wanting some northern raised stock, then you may need to tailor your requeening efforts to what the breeders have.

Northern breeders have a window of opportunity to fill orders, and the buying public must take advantage of that same time-frame.

I know I pass along referrals and support northern breeders. Some of them can be found at www.nsqba.com

I just would not wait till late September to seek queens. They may be hard to find. ;)

[BerkeyDavid]

Just so there's no misunderstanding, Aspera and I were both saying the same thing i think, requeen now. And as I reread what Bjorn, Bud and others have said, there really is no disagreement.

off topic comment: Last night I was reading ABC XYZ of Beeculture, and there is an intersting paragraph that says the success rate of just adding Q cells and expecting them to take without pinching off the queen has a very low success rate according to a number of studies.

[BjornBee]

I was wondering if someone was going to define any kind of time frames. It seems the term "fall re-queening" is used a lot, but that is totally wrong in my opinion. I think now is a good time.

I mention doing it a little sooner due to my taking off honey by early July, since July and August are traditional dearth periods. So, after the honey is taken, that a good time. leaves plenty of time for splits, requeening problems to work themselves out, etc. I no longer take fall flow honey off and would rather leave it for the bees. So I can split, requeen, and start the hives building for winter anytime in July or August.

[Aspera]

Yes, the term "fall requeening" is misleading. In the Mid-Atlantic region, people who say this are usually referring to mid to late summer on the calender. I think the idea was to diffentiate it from spring requeening using Southern queens (which has many benefits). I don't do migratory pollination and can only keep a limited number of hives, so now is the time to requeen, for me, in this region.

[Brandy]

I'm just kind of curious with those that requeen in the fall, do you find that the queen you thought was there and started the summer with, has been superceded by this time or will be shortly??? That's what I've found in the past, but not sure if it holds true each year.

[Aspera]

The average colony will supercede or swarm at least once annually. Many do it twice a year, just as some beekeepers requeen twice annually. My feeling is that fall requeening allows colonies to overwinter better. Perhaps these same colonies swarm more the following spring.