[Morphic]

THis year I am going to be requeening my hive for the first time. Are there any things I should do differently when requeening compared to putting the queen in the hive the first time? I take it i just remove the other queen, and hang the new queen cage in the hive and let them accept her.


Morphic

 

[BjornBee]

When are you going to do it (During a flow or not)? What kind of queen are you requeening with? Where are you from? Are you spring or fall requeening, or something in between? These all help make suggestions easier.

 

[Michael Bush]

At a minimum, when requeening, they need to be queenless for 2 hours. I prefer 12 hours. 24 is ok. More and they will have a queen cell of their own started.

No, you can't just take the old one out and put the new one in. They have to want a new one first.

The typical requeening is a candy cage where you pull the cork on the candy end and put the cage somwhere near or above the brood nest where the bees can get access to both the candy and the screen. This works most of the time in most situations. The point Bjorn is making is that some situations are tricker and there are tricks to improve the odds if there are things that reduce the odds such as a hot hive, laying workers, Russian queen in an Italian hive, hive that has already rejected one queen, etc.

 

[BjornBee]

Thanks for explaining it MB.

 

[Morphic]

I am wanting to do it right at the beginning of spring, but I don't know much about it so any advice is welcome. I just tohught it would be good to have a new queen before the main season. Italian, Ohio.

 

[Michael Bush]

If you really don't have any other motivation than you want a new queen, how old is the old one? Queens are much cheaper and easier to obtain from about June on. Spring queens are always in short supply and always cost more and sometimes aren't mated as well.

Requeening in a flow, also seems to work better as far as acceptance (another one of Bjorn's questions).

 

[Jim Fischer]

A big help would be to remove the workers
from the queen cage before putting the queen
cage into the hive. This has been shown to
reduce rejections by a significant percentage.

This was recently discussed in another thread,
maybe someone can provide a link to the specific
thread.

 

[esatula]

Hey Jim

do the workers have to be removed or just dead?

 

[Jim Fischer]

> do the workers have to be removed or just dead?

Even dead bees still smell "alien" to the bees
in the hive, so I'd remove them regardless.

Heck, If I got a queen with all dead attendants,
I'd be very leery of that queen being worth
installing in anything but an observation hive.
Not having attendants is major stress for a queen.

 

[esatula]

ok thanks
What I was wondering if you had to lift the screen to get rid of them or could you just stick them while they where in the cage though the screen (sounds kind of mean), but I was just nervous about the new queen escaping on me.
Thanks for answering!

I know that I am going to try requeening this year myself to try to go to NWC's and was looking for the best way for myself.
I was planning on wacking the queens the night before when it is in the 60's-70's at night so around late june /july (for me I still have a flow on)and in the morning slide the cage with the new queens on to the bottom boards, cork out, and screen up. Then leave them alone for a week and then check for acceptance. I was told that this is an ok way to do it. Does it sound alright to you? I thought this is cool cause I wouldn't have to remove a frame or anything. This is my first time so any suggestions are greatly appreciated.