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Thread: Best way to requeen nasty colony

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    Default Best way to requeen nasty colony

    Planning to get suited and booted on a queen searching mission to give HM the chop. Whats the best way to requeen this lot afterwards ? Currently on double brood.

  2. #2
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Nucleus method?

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    Was thinking about doing that. Ive got a nuc on the go that would do the job. How long after culling would you leave queenless Gavin and would you unite using newspaper or just insert frames into centre of existing brood.

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    A nucleus itself isn't quite the same as a nucleus from the receiving colony split off for the purposes of queen introduction. If you have a strong, feisty colony I wouldn't put a strange nucleus into the middle of it.

    A month or so ago I had a problem colony, strong, aggressive, and queenless, and a nuc from a different colony. The strong colony had a super over a queen excluder so I united over newspaper above the super and another queen excluder, thinking that would give them a gentle introduction to the new colony. All went well and a week later I reshuffled the colony to put the new queen and her frames down into the brood box.

    I'd remove your old queen and leave them queenless, destroying all queen cells after a week. Then try something similar to the above.

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    With a big colony, nasty or otherwise, you could requeen in two stages based on an artificial swarm.

    Move the big colony a few feet to the side.
    Put a new floor and brood box on the old site.
    Put in a frame of brood all stages and 10 more frames, brood from any colony will do.
    This is to keep the returning flyers happy.
    With a quiet colony I would immediately remove the queen.
    With a nasty colony I would wait 12-24 hours until most of the flyers had returned before finding and removing the queen.
    Check for queen cells and remove any present.
    Introduce the new queen in a slow release introduction cage to the part with the brood and non flying bees.
    Check after a couple of days that she is out of the cage but don't go looking for her as you might provoke the bees to ball her as she is new.
    After a week check for eggs/larvae and then reunite via newspaper after removing all queen cells in the other part, or you could just move the part with the flying bees away and they will return and drift into the requeened part.

    It is far easier to requeen young bees.

    If requeening with a nuc, combine with the young bees and brood via newspaper and then combine again after a week.
    You can loose the queen if the queenright part is far smaller than the queenless part.

    I have requeened the same was as Gavin describes above as well.

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    Many thanks guys. Excellent advice as usual.

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    Senior Member Adam's Avatar
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    I'd do as Jon suggests. (I'm a wuss and don't like agressive bees!). For slow introduction of a queen, I was told to make the candy plug like a brick. However I think the best method is to keep the plastic tab in place for a couple of days and then break off the tab and allow the remaining candy to be eaten through some hours after the hive has been put back together.

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Hi Adam. That's what I do. I wait 24 hours and check the cage. If the bees are calm I open the tab. If not, I wait another 24 hours and check again. The double entrance/exit cages seem to be good as the bees get in with the queen before the queen can get out to the colony.

    queen in cage with attendant.jpg queen cage witrh fondant.jpg

    PS. I am also a wuss.
    Last edited by Jon; 11-07-2011 at 12:04 PM.

  9. #9

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    On another thread elsewhere in the Galaxy (star wars)
    Jon pointed to some IBRA page anyway also on there was an article about direct queen introduction using nothing but a bit of smoke
    The jist of it being that after a week or two queenless and no queen cells then the percentages were no worse for just smoking them and putting the queen in than they were for fiddling around with cages etc.
    Now I'm a fiddler mostly, though I have just soaked and poked a virgin down the back of the broodbox at night on occasions
    More often than that I have soaked and poked one into a mini nuc, again at night
    I have never just shoved a mated queen into a queenless hive with only a bit of smoke to keep the bees busy
    Are we making things harder than they need to be ?

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Adam has introduced several queens like that this year. I tried it on one which was due to be culled and it worked.
    It seems counter-intuitive but does seem to work.
    With a nasty colony you still have to find the problem queen and get shot of her before smoking in the usurper.

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