Moving a queen from one hive to another

**Kimosabe** · 12-01-2011, 11:51 AM

If you look up "New to Beekeeping" in the dictionary... You will find my picture there.

I have four hives, each are a single deep. I have collected swarms and fed them to keep the going.

Two of the hives are very gentle, two are HOT. I've been watching YouTube and have seen laying queens taken from one hive and placed in a queen less hive with no issues.

My question, can I eliminate the two hot queens, and simply place the gentlem queens in the queen less hives and let the gentle hives requeen themselves? If so, when would be the best time to do this?
I live in Southern Calofornia with mild Winters an no threat of snow.

Thanks for you insight.

**fish_stix** · 12-01-2011, 12:07 PM

Your best bet would be to kill the hot queens, wait a day, and introduce, in a queen cage, a new queen. Leave the candy cork in for 3-4 days to let them get accustomed to the new queen then pull the cork and let the bees release her. If the hot hives are African hybrids, which is highly likely in SoCal, they don't accept a European queen, or any other queen, easily. If you just transfer a good queen to them chances are extremely good that they'll kill her immediately. Don't kill the hot queens until you have new queens in hand!

**jrbbees** · 12-01-2011, 01:45 PM

If you have a nuc box move the hot queen with a frame of brood and a frame of honey and pollen out of the hive an block up the entrance of the nuc to make it real hard for them to get out. That way they have to reorient thenselves to the nuc box.

24 hours later do the new queen in the cage thing.

Your old mean queen will be safe incase they do kill the new Queen and you need to return the two frames and the old queen to the original hive.

**gregstahlman** · 12-01-2011, 04:29 PM

i would think this would be a pretty risky move this time of year and risk losing all 4 hives. moving the gentle queens to the hot hives runs a risk that the queens may not be accepted. not the right time of year to be raising new queens either so therefore those hives would be of no good to you queenless. might wanna ask around if there are queens available out of Florida so you could requeen the hot hives.

**Kimosabe** · 12-01-2011, 05:29 PM

Thank you for the responses.

I am not in any hurry. They are hot but manageable. If I wait until February or March will that help?

I have built 2 Nucs (my first beek woodworking project) and will definitely store the hot queens until I have been successful.

I am want to use a "local" queen that has survived the winter if I can. I am just going on the value of such a queen as I read on this Forum

**fish_stix** · 12-02-2011, 11:28 AM

If you're in a bee club ask around and see if anyone raises local queens.

**tsk** · 12-02-2011, 12:57 PM

I would think (time of year notwithstanding), it would be better to kill (or move) the hot queens and then add a frame of eggs to the hot hive and let them requeen themselves rather than risk your nice queens.

Edit: Err, nevermind, I guess you'd have to wait a bit to be sure they used your new brood rather than their old hot brood.

**frazzledfozzle** · 12-02-2011, 01:31 PM

It can be difficult to introduce a gentle queen into a hot hive, the best method for us has been to find the old queen in the hot hive and either knock her off or put her in a nuc box with 4 frames of bees brood and food, shake all the bees from the top box into the bottom box take the gentle queen with 4 frames of brood and bees install her into the space left after taking the old queen out make sure the space is in the top box. Put 3-4 sheets of newspaper between top and bottom box with a shim between so the bees can still come and go.

**Michael Bush** · 12-02-2011, 06:08 PM

As others have said, introducing a queen to a hot hive is trickier than introducing them to a gentle hive. I would dequeen and introduce in a push in cage or at least a candy cage.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrequeeninghot.htm

**Kimosabe** · 12-08-2011, 05:21 PM

Thanks for the insight.
As is said I have 2 hot hives so I will try a couple of these ideas and let you know how it goes.

**Daniel Y** · 12-09-2011, 05:25 AM

Not saying this is the problem but your post did bring to mind this comment. I cannot recall where I read it. "If I have one hive going gang busters and one failing, I re queen the strong hive. Those bees have learned it is easier to rob the weaker hive rather than work for the honey". Not sure I got the quote word for word but I did get the message.