[GregB]

Q: So, what do you do with your old queens?

A: It doesn't feel right pinching my old queens, you know.

See that old, long hive in the back corner?
That is my queen dumpster.
I toss my old queens in there and let the bees take care of them.
I have no idea what is going in that hive.
There are bees flying - all I know about it.



True story.

 

[Nelsonhoneyfarms]

...good story. Might be a pretty good hive he has there!

For some reason the name queen dumpster immediately puts me in mind of some dirty back alley off Bourbon St. LOL

 

[Vance G]

I have no compunction pinching failing or bad temper queens but I do not kill old queens. I am more apt to split good ones off with a couple frames of brood above the parent hive and let the bees rear her successor below. She builds a nuc pretty rapidly and is usually superceded naturally. I am against serial queen replacement as we are breeding for extremely short lived queens.

 

[dekster]

I have no compunction pinching failing or bad temper queens but I do not kill old queens. I am more apt to split good ones off with a couple frames of brood above the parent hive and let the bees rear her successor below. She builds a nuc pretty rapidly and is usually superceded naturally. I am against serial queen replacement as we are breeding for extremely short lived queens.

+1 That is my approach as well- old queens seem to be doing very well in starting new NUCs, then they are superceeded without intervention. I had one 2018 queen this year that was laying frame after frame of packed brood in the nuc- it was my most useful resource nuc, then when I finally decided to pinch her (figured she won't last another winter) last week, all I found were 3 supercedure cells - seems my bees are a week ahead of me in their planning

 

[jonsl]

+1 That is my approach as well- old queens seem to be doing very well in starting new NUCs, then they are superceeded without intervention. I had one 2018 queen this year that was laying frame after frame of packed brood in the nuc- it was my most useful resource nuc, then when I finally decided to pinch her (figured she won't last another winter) last week, all I found were 3 supercedure cells - seems my bees are a week ahead of me in their planning

You should propagate those mind reading bees.