[Hambone]

I have a queen coming in tomorrow. Going to requeen a a hive that is hotter than I like to work. I haven't had to requeen like this before. (Pinch and requeen)

So I am going to pinch to the hot one at noonish tomorrow. I have read to wait a few hours to overnight to requeen. I get that. If I go back at 5 to requeen do you do an open release or mount the cage with the cork out and let them eat the candy and release her? I'm guessing she is coming in a queen standard cage with the candy.

 

[tct1w]

ok this is how I do it and you will get alot of answers. I go a fairly safe route. Real slow. Ice the old one. Make sure no queen cells. look good. Wait 24 hours. Then what I do with a plastic cage is put a piece of tape over the candy and use a queen rim. It just a 3/4 inch spacers that is the size of the brood box. Just a spacer. Then I go back and see how they are accepting her. Next day or following. You can tell when they are trying to feed her through the cage. A goo on it. Thats a good sign. They like her. Take off the tape and let them release her. Thats it. Been the one way that has worked for me well.

 

[Marc]

How fast you can release the new queen will depend on how big your hive is and how quickly they will accept her in the cage. I tried to requeen a normal hive with a new queen, and it failed pretty badly. They accepted the shipped queen, released her just fine, but than superceded her right away. I think it's asking a lot of the new queen to come up to speed quickly enough in a big hive without the bees considering the new queen defective. It would be much safer to install her in a nuc first, let her get started laying a good pattern and than install the nuc into the hot hive, preferably after you made them queenless for a day or so. Introducing her to a fully established large hive is just very risky.

Another option would be to split the hot hive by taking out all capped brood and a frame of open brood and move that to a new spot. Let the split release and accept the new queen. Meanwhile the old hive, now half the size, should be a lot less hot. In two or three weeks pinch the hot queen and combine the two hives via newspaper method.

 

[wdcrkapry205]

I would wait overnite after the pinch, pull the cork let them slow release. Leave them alone for a week. My experience is that the strongest and the meanest hives are the hardest to requeen. I have had them to release a Queen just enough to get some eggs/larvae then supercede her.

Gary

 

[foulbrood]

Chuck Norris does't have a chin he has a fist under his beared...

 

[Hambone]

They accepted the shipped queen, released her just fine, but than superceded her right away. I think it's asking a lot of the new queen to come up to speed quickly enough in a big hive without the bees considering the new queen defective.

I have had them to release a Queen just enough to get some eggs/larvae then supercede her.Gary

Just thinking. If I check back in a week or so and see super cells. I can pull that queen out in another week and use her for a split on another. Since the supered queen will have her genetics.

It's not an overly huge hive. I checked them a week or so ago and they were 10 brood frames strong. I added another brood box then. So they might be 12now. And they are not real hot. Just hotter than what I want.

 

[Chick]

The old Queen's scent will last about 8 hours. As soon as possible after that, is good.

 

[Riley]

IMO the safest way is as Marc suggests, making a split with the new queen and then after she is laying, kill the old queen and do a newspaper recombine. The next best safest is to leave the cork in the queen cage for a couple of days and then check to see how the acceptance is going: kill the old queen, wait a bit (I've waited as little as an hour and up to overnight), put the queen in with cage corked, check back in a couple of days. If they are biting at the cage look for another queen in the hive or queen cells. If you release the queen when they want to attack the cage they will kill her. I've seen $20 disappear fast that way (fortunately only once). If they are calm with the queen pull the cork and let them release her. Of if you are pretty confident at this point you can release her onto a brood frame.

 

[Michael Palmer]

If you want to kill queen and introduce new queen, use a push in cage. Remove old queen. Locate push in over a few cells of emerging and a bit of nectar. Emerging bees will take care of queen, and she will begin to lay. It's obvious when she's accepted.

Or make a nuc and introduce the new queen there...I use the top brood box with brood in all stages. Locate it over the inner cover with escape hole closed and entrance to the rear of the hive. No queens here! Old bees fly home and young bees accept caged queen.

3 weeks later kill old queen(s) below and unite over newspaper. Gives you a 2 queen hive for a few weeks, and allows you to evaluate the new queen before killing the old.

 

[Hambone]

Thanks for the help.

She got here late so I can't do it until tomorrow.

Her Majesty has arrived.

 

[daknoodle]

Where did you get her from?

 

[Hambone]

Another beesource member from the area. He had an extra.

What a ruff requeen job. They were a little hotter than I thought. I looked for the old queen for an hour! I finally pulled out every frame and sperated them. I looked at every frame 3 times and never found her. I narrowed it down to three frames. The frames with the freshest eggs and larva. Figured if anywhere she is probably on one of these. They had quit a bit of bur comb so she had some hiding places. Looked at those three over again. Nothing. So I am about ready to give up and decided to shake these three frames of bees on the ground into different piles. Finally found her in the 3rd pile of bees on the ground. So I just got the new cage and pulled the candy cork. Pushed it into some comb at the top of the frame and tacked in a small staple into the cage (didn't go thru the cage) and into the frame to make sure it was secured.

I had planned to do this Friday but she got here late and today was the first day I could do it. I had also planned to wait at least overnight to place the cage in, but I am real busy the next few days and not sure when I could get back and do it. Hope all works out. I will open them next weekend and see how it is going.

 

[kiwiBee]

To lengthen the time it takes for the queen to be released fold up a small piece of newspaper about 4 times and slip it in the candy end so that the candy is covered by the paper and the bees have to chew through that before they get to the candy.
with a hive as strong as yours they can release the queen in a matter of hours which is not a good thing.
We always remove the attendants we seem to get a much better acceptance by putting the Queen in on her lonesome.
Im not sure why you decided to requeen your hive like you have I would have been more inclined to take the advice from several of the posters who answered your question.:scratch:
Good luck with it.
Cheers
Kiwi:

 

[Batman]

Just curious, but how long did your friend have that queen? She's got last years markings on her.

Craig

 

[iwombat]

I'll second the suggestion of using a push-in queen cage. Relatively fool-proof way to introduce a new queen.

 

[Hambone]

Im not sure why you decided to requeen your hive like you have I would have been more inclined to take the advice from several of the posters who answered your question.:scratch:
Good luck with it.
Cheers
Kiwi:

I was going to make a nuc and do it that way. Planned on getting everything ready on Saturday to do it on Sunday, but all the stuff I had to do on Saturday lasted all day long. This hive is a deep. My only deep so I was going to have to make a nuc, ect..So Sunday I had a small window of time to do it the way I did. Maybe not the best route that’s fore sure. If anything I learned a few things and do know how to do it the proper way next time. There will always be a next time.

I will see how it go's these next few weeks and report my successes or rather failures.

Just curious, but how long did your friend have that queen? She's got last years markings on her.
Craig

Fresh ordered queen from Weavers. They may be using up last years colors. I have read that not all breeders always follow the color rule. :scratch:

 

[Beeslave]

The reason for marking a queen is to know what year she was produced. Someone is requeening there own hives and selling their old queen.

 

[fuzzybeekeeper]

I have purchased queens from B. Weavers before (there ARE two different Weavers, R. Weaver and B. Weaver. Two DIFFERENT businesses. Brothers, but very different including different breeds of bees) and the queens were marked by breed rather than age. They did not follow the year markings because they have different breeds and year color would not have kept the different breeds straight.

Fuzzybeekeeper

 

[valleyman]

I don't understand why everyone is making such a big deal of requeening. On April 2nd I went to kellys and picked up 2 Russian hybrid Queens. I had one real strong hive and one weaker hot hive. I split the strong hive, left the old queen in one brood chamber, split the honey, pollen, and brood as evenly as I could. Left out one frame with only empty comb, pulled the cork on the candy end squeezed her between the center frames. When I went back in 4 days she was out of the cage. The weaker hot hive ( I had got more stings from them than I had ever got from all my other hives combined. ) I went in found the old queen pinched her, reversed the brood chambers, put the new queen in between the frames like before. Went back in 4 days and she was almost out, so I opened the screen on the cage let her in the box. Put back in the frames in the boxes, closed them up and went away. I went back today 4/12 opened up the boxes and found all 3 queens doing just what queens should do. If I was going to do any thing further than this procedure I would use a home made push in queen cage like the one on Micheal Bush's page. Don't make something hard that isn,t.:applause: Oh these were Italians and mutts that I requeened. Oh and the hot hive has already calmed down.

 

[Hambone]

The reason for marking a queen is to know what year she was produced. Someone is requeening there own hives and selling their old queen.

This was from a great honest guy. He had the ship to address changed and it came from Bweaver.

Fuzzy,

Thanks for the clarification.