When requeening, release the helper bees?

I've heard that it does increase acceptance rates, but I haven't personally seen much of a difference. Seems like extra work to me, but when you just spent $18 a queen (plus shipping) it seems like easy odds-raising. YMMV.

Thanks for the info. I was more worried about muffing it and seeing my $22 fly off into the sunset. I'll tell ya how this goes.

RG

Xgrove,

You might want to read this thread:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=239699

Thanks, BeeCurious.

So the consensus there is "remove the attendants". What is the rationale behind it? Is it that the foreign bees provoke the house bees and in the ensuing struggle injure the new queen?

RG

When I pay $100.00 plus $45.00 for shipping there is no question about removing the attendants.
I use long twezzers to pull out the attendants.
Do not pull the queen out!

Ernie

That's my understanding. In any case, there doesn't seem to be any harm in removing the attendants...

And if you are a hobby-beek, it's not like you have to deal with hundreds of queen cages.

My queens came out first most of the time but then walked right in...

It will take a couple days to eat through the candy after you remove the cork or plug over the candy, if it has one. Attendants or atendantless is like direct release - everyone has the right way to do it and everyone else is wrong. Spraying the attendants with sugar water will increase acceptance. A better indicator is if they ball the cage when you put it in. I have replaced literally hundreds of queens with attendants without issues and I do not have time to remove attendants or wait a day after killing the old queen. It would be better to wait a day or two but that is travel time for both trips. If you injure or accidentally lose the queen was it worth it?

I just thought I'd add one more data point to the discussion.

Since I didn't feel confident in releasing the attendants, I put the corked queen cage into the hive to check the temperament of the house bees. After three days I checked them and everybody was alive and the cluster around the cage pretty mellow. I then popped the cork and pierced the candy. Two days later the hive evicted a virgin queen. (The replacement queen was marked so this was not her.) Two weeks or so later there is lots of capped and uncapped brood.

RG