[LittleJoe]

I have seen this suggested by several youtubers, and even today while picking up my first 2 nucs from a local comercial beekeeper it was suggested as well. Is this a common practice I should plan for?

 

[JWPalmer]

Little Joe, the bees know better than we do when it is time to requeen. A hobbyist should go with the flow. Most queens are productive well into their third year, some even longer.

 

[Ravenseye]

I don't but I think about it. Not a bad time of year to re-queen. If it goes well, she gets you well set for the fall / winter. If it goes south, you have time to fix it before the cold weather. BUT.....if you just adopt the position that each colony gets a new queen in July, then you're not taking into account your best queens. Or even ones that are sturdy and productive. Plus, human nature will lead you to believe that your new queen is going to be better (unless she's a clear dud). So you may choose to keep a new queen that lays a hot hive thinking that you're still better off even though if you hadn't swapped your queens out you'd be thinking about replacing her anyway.

Theres' nothing wrong with the date for almost all parts of the country. Lots of keepers pull frames in supers, extract, clean up and assess. It's more about the thoughtful approach for a hobby beekeeper than the date on the calendar.

 

[Clayton Huestis]

I think that northern beekeepers that raise there own queens use this method cause that's when we have excellent queens. The absolute best method to requeen colonies is via nucleus colony. A laying queen with her own bees and brood is almost always accepted over a non laying caged queen. These queens will lay later into the season, much later then production colonies that are gearing down. Also over wintered as nucs ala Webster / Palmer methods and you get chance number two to requeen colonies with these July queens in the spring. If not needed then set them up to rock as production colonies. They almost always peek right on the flow. Even if you are new and buy queens, make up nucs in july and over winter. If you have a poor colony in the spring you already have the ability to requeen with a winter tested queen and don't have to fight the mob of beekeepers to get those early queens which are usually crap....your all set. Just my 2 cents.