Requeening and queen cells

[Lively Bee's]

I requeened one of my hives after killing off the old Italian queen. I installed the new Italian queen. 3 days later I go and ck on her and all of her workers are dead but 1 and only one or two bees are trying to get her out of the cage. After I pulled frams out of the upper brood chamber I found 15 or so queen cells were they were trying to raise there own queen. I removed them all that I could find.

So will they reject this new queen when she comes out? Sould I help her get out of the cage after 2 or 3 more days?

Thank you every one.

[WG Bee Farm]

I would put a piece of scotch tape across the sugar hole and keep her caged for another 4 days
then release her.
Better safe than sorry.

[Michael Bush]

If you got rid of all the queen cells they should accept her.

[Lively Bee's]

They did her in. They killed her and the workers in the cage. I will have to let them raise a queen I guess :<

[BjornBee]

Finding the situatuion you did after 3 days, removing the queen cage and a frame or two of bees(absolutely no open brood) would of been an option. You could of introduced the queen to a couple frames ensuring they had no other option to except her due to no open brood.
Then you could of made sure the main hive was no longer trying to raise thier own, and combined with the new queen and the couple frames by newspaper method. After she started laying would be best. The mind-set of the bees had already been decided (in raising a queen) and your queen was doomed from that point on, without removing her. If you missed one queen cell and thats not hard to do, you were doomed. Or if they killed her within the time after you killed the cells but before they stopped trying to kill her, you were doomed. And once the queen cells started they may never of excepted her. I would of removed the queen under the situation you described. (This of course is understood with the normal "maybe, depends, and exception".)

[Lively Bee's]

Thanks for the info. NBext time I will try that. I am going to let this new queen from the cell mate and see how well she lay's


Thank you

[Chef Isaac]

I have a question for you. Did you, beforte interducing the new queen in her cage, let the bees go queenless for a min. of 24 hours?

[Antero]

Removing the old queen the previous day and introducing the new queen the following late afternoon usually produces a very good rate of acceptance and is what I recommend.Removing escort bees just prior to introduction is helpful but not necessary.If your hive has been queenless for more than 2 - 3 days check and destroy all queen cells.

Terry

[Lively Bee's]

I killed the old queen When I was in the bee yard on sunday night after I had installed all my new packages. Then on monday afternoon about 6pm I installed the new queen.

[Bob Harrison]

The general rule of thumb is bees know they are queenless no later than three hours after the old queen is removed. I have seen hives which know they are queenless within minutes of me caging their queen but the exception in my opinion rather than the rule.

Trying to introduce a caged queen into a nuc with a missed queen cell:

Commercial beekeepers use the term "the bees honor the queen cell/cells".

Many times even a single queen cell missed in a nuc can cause the problem described above. A good rule of thumb is to check when making up the nuc and again if possible for a queen cell when installing the caged queen.

Takes a trained eye at times as bees will at times honor started queen cells also. At times bees simply tear down started queen cells or the queen destroys the cells once released. There is no set rule to go by.

Another problem I see at times is due to the fact caged queens (when tested on arrival at the bee lab through the mail by a mass spec machine)have a low pheromone level on arrival (which returns to normal once laying starts again). The bees simply think they are queenless despite the caged queen. I have seen cases where the bees would not feed the caged queens. They would cover her and peer at her.

I often have wondered if the decision to create a queen cell in the above situation is determined by a single bee, a dozen, a hundred. My *opinion* is a single bee feels the need and then another helps and before long all the nurse bees are watching over the cell. If you destroy a queen cell you can see many bees rush over to inspect the damage.

[BerkeyDavid]

Hi Bob, great comments, very interesting. I enjoyed your article in BC about your Russians. How did they make it through the winter and how are they looking? I am sure everyone would enjoy reading about it. Probably should start a new topic...

[Bob Harrison]

Hi David,
Original Russian/Russians look great! Both Purvis lines look great. II Russian breeder queens still untreated also. One line carries a lower varroa count than the other two but no sign of PMS in any of the colonies. We have got cells from three varroa tolerant lines in the mating nucs. My order of Purvis gold line all came in alive and are in nucs in push in cages. The blue line Russians arrive this Thursday.

As I wrote on BEE-L the last 100 Russian/ Russian I received from a California queen breeder were simply Italian/Italian bees. By fall they were ate up with varroa. The yellow drones the queens produced , and my talks with the USDA/ARS in Baton Rouge , made me quickly realize the breeder was simply ripping people off. Because the queens were installed 2004 late I decided to remove from the Russian area to my remote yards ,treat with Apilife Var and use for honey production this year. I have got hives of bees which are simply Itlian or carniolan so not a big deal. I can't believe the dumb ass thought he would fool me!

The Purvis lines are the most varroa tolerant bees I have tested so far. The Russian bee was simply a test for me. I believe to test a line you need at least a hundred queens of the line to be sure of your results. At the end of this season I will decide if I want to continue with the Russian/Russian, a Russian hybrid or the Purvis gold line bee. The Purvis Russian bee is a bit fiesty for my taste and needs worked with smoke. I think a hybrid of his Russian blue line ( Maybe Russian/Australian) might better suit my needs and would produce hybrid vigor which would improve the line .

Last fall I ran two different tests on the Russian bees. One group I simply fed in a holding yard and wintered. In spring they were frugal and had a small cluster. I do pollination in spring so not interested in frugal!

The other group I moved into the Blackwater River bottoms on a sea of heartsease. They stored a huge amount of nectar & pollen and raised many young bees to winter on. Those hives looked far better to me this spring. My conclusion is that when the pollen shuts down the Russians shut down.

Other interesting tests I am working on:

13 yugo colonies untreated since 1993. Very inbred and only survivors which produce no surplus to speak of. I believe these are the oldest documneted survivors in the U.S. I would write an article but beekeepers would never believe the story so will share with you and you can do what you want with the information but the story is fact.

I looked through 23 hives in Florida last week with my close friend Horace Bell which were all that was left from a huge yard left untreated in Florida. Horace wanted me to determine if survivor quality. Although alive the hives were not thriving and we found signs of PMS in all hives. Not on all frames but if you looked carefully in all hives. I suppose the genetics would be useful but a true survivor does not in my opinion display PMS signs. PMS signs in my opinion show a hive which can go over threshold in a hurry if stressed or outside infestation occurs. I remove from the program once i see PMS but others doing varroa tolerant research do not.

Sadly many beekeepers (even some commercial beekeepers) still think they are dealing with early foulbrood when they see PMS. I ran across a beekeeper awhile back which said he had foulbrood which was resistant to terra. He had been burning frames and equipment with PMS for several years until I showed him the error of his ways!

Off to bed as the next two weeks are going to be busy with long days. Seven days away from home put me a week behind.

Bob