fall queening

[pembroke]

how many believe Fall requeening is better than the Spring? I have a hive that needs to be requeened. Just learning from day to day. Pembroke

[Joseph Clemens]

The premise seems plausible, vigorous young queens to lay the eggs to produce the bees that will be living through the Winter - while they also are young and vigorous to make it through the Winter. I'm raising a new batch of queen cells every week, then using them to replace any queen in hive or Nuc that seems less than 100% or not homozygous for Cordovan color. I almost have all my hives and all my Nucs sporting new and vigorous young queens homozygous for Cordovan color. It is late Summer nearly Autumn.

I cannot attest that Fall requeening is best, since I have just begun using this technique, while most all of my previous requeenings have all been accomplished from Spring through Summer. I plan to use Nucleus colonies with suitable young queens to replace/restore queens to any full-size colonies that seem in need of such replacement.

[brooksbeefarm]

I raise queens in nuc!s all summer long usally 8 to 10 all the time.Then in late aug. or sept. I use them to replace failing queens.I like fall queens because your going into next spring with a young queen and they are not likely to swarm.Not to say they won!t but not likely.

[BeeAware]

I also prefer fall re-queening. Only problem is that the job is a little trickier and may require a longer introduction time if there is no fall flow on at the time.

[Ravenseye]

I'm re-queening next week to solve a spotty laying queen problem. I've lived with one slow hive all summer thinking that they would take care of it themselves but now I have to take action.

[RayMarler]

I only requeen as a queen does poorly, not as a spring or fall scheduled chore. I raise queens from the middle spring thru to early fall so I have my own queens to use for needed requeening purposes.