Queen Acceptance/Rejection

**Joseph Clemens** · 05-25-2012, 05:08 PM

Well, this morning I was checking queen status (looking for mated/laying queens). When I located a queen that was mated/laying I would gently mark her, then return her to her colony. Every so often a queen would escape me and take a short flight, so this morning I had one that took a short flight, but instead of returning to her own hive, as almost all of them do, this one tried to enter a hive, behind her own hive. I watched her land and retrieved her immediately, the bees from that hive had promptly started attacking her. After she was in my hand I had to carefully hold on to her, while removing the attacking bees (I had to kill some of them to get them to stop holding tightly to her legs and wings). Perhaps six of their stings inserted themselves in the tip of my right index finger - ouch. I did manage to safely extricate her from this mess. I then carefully marked her as I usually do, after letting the marking paint dry thoroughly I released her back into her own colony -- oops, apparently she had acquired a fragrance her own workers no longer recognized, they began attacking her, similarly to how she was attacked at that other hive. Fortunately I needed to harvest a queen for a customer, so I caged her, gave her an entourage of attendants of nurse bees from a nearby queenless colony -- they accepted her without incident.

**scdw43** · 05-25-2012, 06:17 PM

I don't use smoke a lot, but that might have been a good time to use it. Nice story I always learn something from your post Joesph, thanks.

**Joseph Clemens** · 05-25-2012, 07:48 PM

I forgot to mention, as her own bees were trying to attack her, I smoked the little battles, three or four times, but they would reform almost as soon as the smoke cleared, so I gave up on that. Maybe I should have smeared a little honey on her, but I was too anxious not to lose her, I didn't think of it until later.

**DonShackelford** · 05-26-2012, 10:37 AM

I installed 10 new unmarked Kelley queens about 30 days ago. almost none of the new queens were accepted. Fortunately, I had put a frame of eggs in each start, and the bees made their own queens which are just now starting to lay. What a dissapointment and the loss of a month and $200 in queens.

**bevy's honeybees** · 05-26-2012, 10:35 PM

Originally Posted by DonShackelford

I installed 10 new unmarked Kelley queens about 30 days ago. almost none of the new queens were accepted. Fortunately, I had put a frame of eggs in each start, and the bees made their own queens which are just now starting to lay. What a dissapointment and the loss of a month and $200 in queens.

Can I ask what process you used? My inspector recommended honey coating the cage, though I forgot to recoat when I checked queen cage as they hadn't released her yet. I got my queens from Kelley this week also.

**DonShackelford** · 05-29-2012, 09:24 AM

I made 3 frame nucs from hives, added pollen & honey, took out the cork, and put the queen between 2 frames pointing up. I checked 3 days later. All but 2 were out. I have poor vision, but I did find a few of them A month later, they appear to have been superseded using the brood from the donor hives. I didn't leave them queenless for 24 hours. My bad.
For my next attempt on July 15th I'll be using queen cells, not queens. Cheaper, and I think acceptance will be much better. I'll leave them queenless for 24 hours.

**Closet Beekeeper Japan** · 05-31-2012, 08:21 AM

How can you tell nurse bee? And will they always accept a queen?

**Velbert** · 05-31-2012, 10:25 AM

They look the same as others maby except old field bees with there tatered wings, you will have nurse bees in the brood nest by young larva but to distinguish which is doing the feed of larva they look the same you might watch and see one that enters the cell with the larva more than likely this will be a nurse bee.

**DonShackelford** · 05-31-2012, 11:33 AM

Ditto with Velbert.

If you put some brood frames above a queen excluder and come back in a few hours, the nurse bees will be all over the brood.

Bees don't always accept new queens, but leaving them queenless for 24 hours helps a lot.

**Closet Beekeeper Japan** · 06-01-2012, 04:31 AM

Nurse bees do not attack a queen is that right? Thanks for the comments.

**DonShackelford** · 06-01-2012, 05:57 AM

Originally Posted by Closet Beekeeper Japan

Nurse bees do not attack a queen is that right? Thanks for the comments.

Bees will be aggressive to an unaccepted queen.

**David LaFerney** · 06-01-2012, 06:49 AM

Introducing (usually expensive) foreign queens is still probably the riskiest thing for me. I put 2 carni queens into italian nucs yesterday using push in cages. All I can do now is cross my fingers I guess.

I just wonder - will they pretty much always even feed a new queen? Is there anything you can do about it?

Again with the crossed fingers.

**Velbert** · 06-01-2012, 07:02 AM

if it is a stray queen or not there's, I have re queened a not very good queen found her killed her tossed her on the ground then find a fat laying out of my mating nuc catch the queen and place her on the brood comb that the old queen was on with out any trouble.

I will only do this if there is a flow on and later in the day when they are flying and working good and lot of the older bees are full of nectar.