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Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening

18K views 51 replies 20 participants last post by  Hunajavelho 
#1 ·
It's an early study that deserved my attention. There is no match in advanced title search. I believe it has interest to some of us.


REQUEENING HONEY BEE COLONIES WITHOUT DEQUEENING
By I. W. FORSTER* (Received 15 October 1971)

ABSTRACT
Two-storeyed colonies can be successfully requeened by raising
the original queen and the brood nest above a division board, rearing a young queen from an introduced cell in the bottom storey, and then reuniting both storeys when most advantageous. There is no need to
find queens, and colony manipulation is reduced to a minimum.


source: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00288233.1972.10421270?needAccess=true
 
#4 ·
I'm not sure how that relieves one of finding the original queen. You need to know the box she is in.

I rather like the artificial swarm idea. Move the old queen to a nuc with sufficient stores, nurses, and brood to get a fresh start. Let the old hive raise a queen. If anything goes wrong, you can recombine, or donate brood from the nuc. If you decide to pinch the old queen later, the nuc can be recombined with the original.
 
#6 ·
I combined two queenright colonies this Fall. Repeated attempts to locate an older queen (to remove her) failed over several days during bad weather and I ultimately gave up. The colonies were initially separated by an inner cover with the center hole open, and a sheet of newspaper over that. After a number of days the inner cover was removed from the middle of the stack (the newspaper had been chewed through).

I'll see what's what come Spring. I really didn't have much choice as it was so late in the season and better weather was not to be expected. Unfortunately, neither queen was marked, so unless there are two queens in there when I inspect in the Spring, it isn't likely that I'll know which survived.
 
#7 ·
Hi Eduardo, I cannot see the point of leaving the older queen to be destroyed. I re queen my hives every spring with my own queen cells as part of my swarm prevention practice, when the spring weather allows. The 2nd season queen with a frame of capped brood becomes a nuc to be sold later. Of course the colony has to be watched for the cell to emerge and eventually for the new queen to start laying.
Johno
 
#8 ·
Hi johno, In my case I may have to eliminate some old queens for the first time, because I do not wish to duplicate my number of hives. On the other hand I am not sure that in my country I can sell in a few months 600 nucs. Purchasing power here is lower than in the US and many beekeepers recover their winter losses by spliting their hives or picking up swarms.
 
#9 ·
I have read in many different sources that you can just place a ready to emerge queen cell in the top of the top honey stores box. The cell will emerge and the virgin will kill the old queen most of the time, as a superceder replacement. There are a couple people here in the forms that do this, I can't recall just who at the moment though.

The ready to emerge cell is to be placed in the top honey storage area to give her some separation from the brood nest area which is below. A virgin queen is programmed to search out and kill other queens, and the old queen is slower as she is full off eggs and actively laying. I have read that this works in a high percentage of the colonies it is done on, and seems much easier than what is described in the link in the first post above.
 
#10 ·
I have read in many different sources that you can just place a ready to emerge queen cell in the top of the top honey stores box.
Yes Ray, I also think some of us do it with success.

However if I find it difficult to sell the 600 nucs, I intend to sell about half. As I am not sure how many, I believe I.W. Forster's proposal fits well with this level of uncertainty. Those who come to sell I'll pass them to another box. Those who I do not sell I'll put out the divider board and let nature take its course.

About the technique you refer Szabo wrote this paper:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.1982.11100543?src=recsys

One question: in Portugal, beekeepers value more nucleus with a new queen compared to a nucleus with a one-year-old queen. I have the impression that in the USA it is the opposite, that you value a queen who has overwinter well. Is it correct?
 
#12 ·
stan.vick,
I am curious - why do the bees who have the old queen that is still laying not defend her and kill the new queen. I once saw bees ball a young queen that returned from her mating flight and land on the wrong landing board. I was suprised how quickly they attacked her and she didn't even get in the hive.
 
#13 ·
I think it is the lack of or weak queen pheromones of an unmated queen, I have taken a newly emerged queen and placed her at the entrance of a hive and watched her march into the hive unchallenged while there were plenty of guard bees on duty, I did this out of curiosity because I had the same questions that you have. I have used the method many times, so it's not just a fluke, it works time after time.
 
#16 ·
The newly mated young after the solstice queen that can overwintered will
withstand the arctic chills here better. Under our normal environment, they can
multiply quickly on hive expansion days. Remember that she is still a 2-3 months young queen but
overwintered nevertheless. So she can carry the colony through. Without these young queens my
mite bomb nuc manipulation cannot be done here. She can often outlay the old 2nd year queen and beat the mites population too. That's why if I can to overwinter as many of these late mated queens as possible. Since she's in the nuc stage, the focus will be on hive expansion and not on swarming impulse on an early Spring flow. On purpose, 3 years in the testing mated and emerged in a hive mite infested level nuc hive. I'm almost there with all the equipment preparation for another round this Spring.
 
#21 ·
Yes. Yet another reason to do OTS on June 20.
I'll be putting pink dots on the 2017 post solstice queens. Yellow on the pre-solstice.
In fact I'm trying to come up with a system to mark my queens where I can tell what year and whether it's pre or post solstice just by color. Then compare which has better winter survival rate.
I wonder if a post-soltice queen could make it thru two Illinois winters. So far not many have made it that long in my yards.
 
#17 ·
I confess to not having read the paper, but Eduardo's description seems to be the same words which would be applied to a Snelgrove board vertical split of a colony. Is it somehow different?

Michael
 
#18 ·
I know several beekeepers who have been promoting this method of re-queening in recent years. When I ask about success rate they don't really know; there is just the assumption that the young virgin destroys the old queen. The only way to know for sure is if the old queen is marked. If you are going to follow-up by locating the surviving queen then you might as well find the old queen to begin with and destroy her before inserting the cell to eliminate all doubt. There has been recent discussion about this method within another group and it appears, when a study was actually done, that the success rates are not nearly so good as many think.

http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1705&L=BEE-L&P=71
 
#19 · (Edited)
I am not advocating this method although I may try it modified.
SWM said: "The only way to know for sure is if the old queen is marked. If you are going to follow-up by locating the surviving queen then you might as well find the old queen to begin with and destroy her before inserting the cell to eliminate all doubt."
No, if the old queen is unmarked you just mark the new queen and then you know for sure. Marking is the only way I have of finding queens at my age unless I am lucky that day, and then I have to hope that she doesn't get superseded.
The modification, and it is not really a modification, is just to put the new queen (marked) in a nuc with nurse bees shaken from the hive you are trying to requeen (if possible) and then when she is established and laying do a newspaper combine with the nuc on top. This is not my idea I think others have been doing this with pretty good success just from threads I have read.
This is really stan.vick's method above with the queen cells and an excluder which seems pretty easy and fits well with OTS. Using a cell
I am going to have to find her after emergence and mark her and of course provide an upper entrance for mating probably using a double screen board.
 
#24 ·
A common enough description of "science": observation by the "generally respectable," followed by interpretation by the "appropriately certified." Someone without certification, but who becomes respectable enough to be given a public hearing, is commonly awarded some honorary degree or other, thereby becoming certified.

One only has to read the reports provided by adequately careful observers, and make one's informed interpretation of these observations to be doing what falls under my definition of "science." Disselkoen has an apparent conflict of interest. But that doesn't mean his information is less correct. It just means he might not be fully objective. Or he might be. "Apparent" does not mean "actual." Listen, then make your decision. "Science" brought you "all cholesterol plugs your arteries.... Oh, wait.... maybe not. Oh. There are _two_ kinds of that stuff. But coconut oil is ba.... oh. wait.... But you don't really want to be eating fat in your diet, anyway... Oh...." Listen, think, then decide. You, too, can do "science."
 
#25 ·
I'm part science and part observation with my little bee experiment through out the years. Third year into the
testing and still have not learn them all yet. One can only be certain by testing a small batch to see the yearly
results. The reason I still have bees to keep and expand on is that mainly 95% of my hives are from the overwintered
nucs with a late after the solstice queen that I hand selected coming from good genetic background. They are the local
mated daughter queens. The obsolete ones will be weeded out during the qualifying and selection process made during the
winter time as we have mild winter here. Combine Mike Palmer's nuc and Mel's (late) solstice queen with my
mite bee bomb brood removal (winter) nuc management method = winter survival bees. The proof is in the box. A well fed young strong queen coming from good genetics will make the difference between winter survival or a hive crash. Many will not select their queens for winter survival, I do. So select them carefully!


Young queen on Spring expansion is amazing:
 

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#28 ·
Is it possible it is not a difference in the queens as much as a difference in the number of winter bees they layed in the fall? Once again, I have seen it suggested several times that a queen hatched after the summer solstice will lay like a queen who is in the spring build up. This late brood break and rapid fall build up could help the hives control mites. It could give the hive more and healthier winter bees. This could make it appear that the queen born after the summer solstice is much better than the spring queen that has reduced brood rearing in the fall, wintered with less and less healthy bees due to varroa. Or worse yet the queen that did not reduce brood rearing, but, protected tons of mites in her brood right up until winter. No?
 
#29 ·
SWM: Well, yes (as he lifts his head sheepishly to reply), I do respond on some topics in a rantish fashion. Michael Faraday was not a college-schooled, certificated person, but a well-reasoned, astute observer. While having the first half of that, I occasionally muster the skill to be the second. I make mistakes, too. But no one should take the word of a certificated person when it runs counter to his own eyes. Yes, your eyes may fool you, but then you're not observing carefully enough. We should just keep at it and remember our limitations.

Seems we are in basic agreement. Look at the development history of Walt Wright's "Nectar Management" for some hints he provides on this topic of post-solstice queens. Walt's observations included that his queens laid like anything into the open brood space he provided through his checkerboarding, in his time and place, with his bees. Then they were superseded for reasons he didn't determine. His observation was that it routinely happened. Some others who corresponded with him did not see the same things with their bees, at least not as a uniform pattern. But Walt's observations dovetail with Disselkoen's observations about post-solstice queens being a Good Thing To Overwinter. Disselkoen makes what appear to be speculative words about day-length sensitivity, concerning the validity of which I have no idea whatsoever. But both of these astute observers found that later-summer queens were beneficial. Neither concluded confidently why this should be so.

Disselkoen credits Miller with noting and publishing the tendency of worker bees to turn cut cells into queens at the bottom of chevron-trimmed comb. Miller, in Disselkoen's view, didn't recognize that simply turning a cell into a downward facing cup seemed to be the crucial trigger. Hopkins found this in his "turn comb horizontal" method of making queen cells, but Disselkoen uses both in a simple fashion to guide and suggest to the bees where to place queen cells. The bees don't always listen, but there is a bias in their response.

It would be useful to understand why post solstice queens did well in these two areas. I find it uncompelling that the bees simply out-reproduce the mites. There is always a population reduction in bees, and the mites don't automatically die off as the bee population decreases. Now, if the queen rears the winter bee population with fewer brood cycles, that also cuts off some of the growth cycles of the mites, and could reduce the mite infestation proportion. But (as you said of yourself) I don't know.
 
#30 ·
There is no difference between the queens you describe if they are raised in my area. What affects a queen's ability to lay eggs is the number of eggs she has available to lay, the amount of sperm she has stored to fertilize them, and the number of eggs she has been required to lay to build a worker population to collect the spring nectar flow.

A May queen will do just as well laying the fall/winter bees as one raised after June 21, if she is in a healthy, well fed colony. She has not been stressed by having to lay large numbers of eggs for the spring buildup. The winter adult bee population is the foundation for the buildup the following spring, and many beekeepers fail to properly manage the colony to encourage the bees fall buildup. When the colony fails overwinter it is blamed on an "old" queen dying, or excessive moisture.

The solstice is just another day, ignore the "gimics" and raise well nourished virgins from good stock, and furnish healthy drones for her to mate with. Have new queens in all of your colonies by the middle of July and watch your winter survival rate climb.
 
#32 ·
Just so I understand correctly. At the top your saying A May queen will do just as well as a queen raised after June 21. At the bottom your saying have new queens by the middle of July and watch your winter survival rate climb. Are you saying requeen at any time between spring and the middle of July and it will make no difference? Survival will increase due to a queen hatched in that period (spring thru the middle of July)?
 
#31 ·
Thanks, DerTiefster, for your response and I think we are in a same place. Both passionate about honey bees and why they do what they do.
The learning experience about bees has kept me fascinated with them for 40+ years and those who follow us will be doing the same thing
after we are gone.
 
#33 ·
It is quite possible that Disselkoen's attribution of a day-length effect is only a guess. Motivated by post-spring queen survival, but no mechanism was suggested and it's hard to test out such a link. It is, however, a plausible link. Lots of things have day-length dependencies. I don't know that bees do, though. Tropical areas show little variation in day length. Bees can operate there year-round. Some places elsewhere, like protected coastal areas, have nearly year-round bee weather _and_ a day-length variation. Testing for such a link in those places might be fun.
 
#34 ·
This thread needs to be re-titled. :)

I agree with AR Beekeeper. :thumbsup:
I would call your attention to this blog post by a knowledgeable beekeeper. https://honeybeesuite.com/what-are-winter-bees-and-what-do-they-do/
I think Mel's methods based upon his studies of the leading beekeepers writings from the past from a practical view are spot on. He may not articulate them in "science speak" but his results will speak for themselves.
The recent studies showing that our pollen in some ways is deficient is also a concern and caused me for the first time to open feed a pollen sub/supp this past fall and the bees took it like there was no tomorrow resulting, in part, in an explosion of bees this spring.
 
#38 ·
Zactly my thoughts. June 20 is the longest day of the year. After that every day is shorter. You don't notice it for a while but them bugs do. They've got atomic clocks and the finest GPS units nature can produce. They find their way back to a tiny little hole in a forest of trees.
 
#37 ·
OK, wow correct me if I am wrong after reading the two papers (Ed’s and SiWolKe:
I do not have to make a hive queenless to raise 20 cells, just place the cells above an excluder
I do not have to make up mating nucs, just place cells in a deep between boxes (method B, Below seemed to be preferred).
I could run two queen colonies through our flow (nothing blooms here after blackberry in June), newspaper the two half’s or simply remove the old queen.
Debate is out on the solstice, but again we hit a dearth at that date so raising queens after that date may have advantages for overwintering (Dr. Dewey Caron says using left over field bees)
 
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