[Beeslave]

Has anyone used these queens? What was/is your thoughts on them?

I installed 100 packages with oliveraz italians. I also made 90 splits(3 frames brood and a total of 5 frames covered with bees) not from the packages 5 weeks after I installed the packages. 30 splits got Parks/Wooten queens and 60 splits got Aureas. I am running all of these as singles with an excluder and supers above. The aureas had a large percentage that swarmed with plenty of empty super space while the oliveraz and parks/wooten just keep making honey. I've never had splits swarm like these Aureas have.

After the splits/packages built a good population and were using the first super(above a deep brood box) for brood and honey storage I drove them down with bee-go then added the excluder. I then gave a deep honey super on top. If the first super was pretty full I checker boarded with empty frames.

I know-swarm control-be a better beekeeper-spend more time with the bees-etc.

Why just the Aureas with the swarming problem?

 

[swarm_trapper]

hey beeslave i have used a bunch of them, i got about 500 from Hawaii queen co. about two years ago and didn't have swarming problems they were great queens just not very mite resistance, like 0 resistance. so i didn't use them last year.
Then this year i got 500+ from dave miksa (cells not mated) and they are great build up great and are making honey. So i do like them they aren't as very hygienic though. Got some of daves Mn hyg and liked them a lot so i might be trying more of those next year.
regards Nick
P.S. i dont use a queen excluder maybe that has something to do with it?

 

[Beeslave]

I believe the excluder had something to do with it, but it is in the genetics(with using excluder) of the Aurea(?maybe?). They packed the super(6 5/8) above the excluder but didn't use the deep super above that then swarmed. A few colonies of 2 other lines of italians swarmed but they did with both the deep and 6 5/8 almost full(but just starting to cap).