Anyone ever have success allowing a hyper defensive colony rear a new queen and end up getting a gentler queen who lays workable bees? Typically I requeen or use brood from another gentler colony for queen rearing, but am curious can I get lazier on this process and just pinch a hyper defensive laying queen and hope the genetics mellow by allowing the colony rear a queen from their own brood? Can I get lazier requeening? 😉 I work almost exclusively with SoCal ferals so I’m used to the varying levels of AHB defensiveness.
Since no one has chimed in yet...
I'd say if the bees made their own queen from africanized queen , I'd say dilution would be based on drones on area. You'd mabye get milder, but maybe not. All depends on africanized bees in area. I'd say order or get a queen from out of area with no africanized bees in population. Say you could order from Hawaii, or I think Alvarez has mellow queens. Good luck
I have not done that (but I would doubt the new queen would be nicer). In my experience, in aggressive feral population area, if I don't try to at least control the temperament on the queen side they bees just get hotter, not better. I have killed mean queens and then given them a frame from a nice hive after cutting queen cells a week later. Two months later = nice hive
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