any one heard of this?????

[msmithnewbee]

this is my 1st yr with bees! was talking to someone that said to kill your queen after the sulustus. the hive will make a new queen. in that time frame there is no queen, if you have mites it will kill the mites. before the new queen hatches??
any one heard of this?

[MichelinMan]

I've never heard of this but I'm also in my first year. Anyway I think the interruption in the brood cycle caused by a queenless state would probably have a positive impact on the mite population. Mites reproduce in sealed brood so no queen = no brood = less mites. But the solstice was almost 4 weeks ago. Making a new queen at this late date means her first brood will emerge in late August at best, but more like early September. This would mean the hive will be going into the fall/winter stage in a weakened state.

Also I wouldn't kill the queen just for the mite's sake. If she is young and fertile and laying well maybe you should look at other means to reduce mites

This is just my opinion.

MM

[BigDaddyDS]

Do a search for: FALL REQUEENING.

The concept here is two fold. One, that a queen produced BEFORE "turn of days", or summer solstace, will start to reduce egg laying due to reduced daylight times, and will gradually shut down new bee production. On the other hand, a new queen does not have this frame of reference and will produce brood well into the fall, providing your hive with a strong number of new bees to go into winter with. And two, when requeening your hive, the gap between the old brood hatching and the new brood being laid will cause the Varroa mite to have no place to reproduce.

Interesting concepts, to say the least.

I am a proponent of fall requeening. Instead of spring requeening, when queen demand is high and quality (due to poor mating conditions) can be questionable, fall requeening provides me the opportunity to a) raise my own queens here in Michigan, b) allows me to replace her during the pre-goldenrod dearth that occurs here, c) allows me to breed her with localized drones (with NO AHB in the area) of, hopefully, my own stock. If mite control is included in this, then it's a bonus to me.

But, rather than smashing the old queen, I'd insert a queen cell instead. That way you're not waiting almost two months before your field force is back in business.

DS

[Michael Bush]

If you're trying for a break in the brood cycle, I'd put the queen, a frame of brood and a frame of honey in a nuc and let them requeen themselves. If things don't go well, you can put the queen back, if they do, they'll have a new queen.

[Velbert]

Read this
http://www.mdasplitter.com/article.htm