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Senior Member
I don't think there is any way of re-queening which guarantees 100% success.
The double chute cages are good as bees can get in to the queen before the queen gets out into the full colony.
The entrance with the short plug of fondant lets in the workers but is too narrow for the queen to get out.
queen cage witrh fondant.jpg queen in cage with attendant.jpg
If I had a really important queen I did not want to lose I would make up a nuc with young bees and combs of emerging brood and introduce her via one of these cages. I would build up the nuc by adding frames of emerging brood at weekly intervals.
If requeening a full colony, I remove the old queen, wait a week, and then remove all queen cells. At this point I introduce the queen in the cage. If the bees are showing a lot of aggression towards the queen I wait at least 48 hours before opening the plastic tab on the cage to expose the fondant.
But like I said, there is no foolproof method and like everyone else I lose the odd queen on introduction.
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Senior Member
About a year ago I asked about the Steve Taber/Albert Knight/John Dews Method of queen introduction as described by David Cushman. He claimed a 100% success rate with that method. The Cushman pages have been updated and the diagram is now here, and the description of the method - as well as many others - is here (near the bottom of the page).
I noticed that I've posted my question in the wrong forum - but there are a lot of good replies in the thread about queen introduction. However, my original question was not answered. It was, why would aggressive bees feed a queen who has no food or helpers with her in the cage (as in the ST/AK/JD method)? I'm still curious about that.
Kitta
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Sorry all .Didn't spot the other thread on the same subject.
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Senior Member
Well, I filed it in the wrong place. Still, if anybody can answer my original question, that would be great.
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Senior Member
I use the large white Nicot cages sold by Modern Beekeeping (and others, though that's where I got mine from as they're the best price I could find). These are squarish, about the area of a box of large kitchen matches. You place it over a patch of emerging brood, introduce the queen through the small entrance, which is then sealed, and then leave them for a week or so. I usually then open the entrance and let her out in her own time. I've used this to successfully requeen very strong and pretty aggressive hives.
A few hints ... hold the cage in place with a couple of rubber bands to discourage the workers tunnelling under the edges. Also remember where you place the entrance cover down when introducing the queen or releasing her. I lost them all in long grass last year and have botched covers made of duct tape and tinfoil now.
I think these work well because the emerging brood immediately accept the new queen. I've used this method to requeen totally broodless hives (queenless for a month or so) by introducing a frame with a fist sized patch of emerging brood and one of these cages.
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Administrator
Wonderful! I need some of these cages ....
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Member
Nicot large cage...sometimes bees do chew their way under or through the back. Not seen it but not used mine much yet.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
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Ooh, Handy Thread.
I know the basic principle of re-queening, but could someone talk through their method?
i.e. You've got a queen right colony that you want to requeen, what are your basic steps/timings and at what point, when you know they've accepted the new queen, would you go through a colony and think "Yep, they're much better with this new queen than the old one"? (or not as the case may be)
Last edited by Neils; 15-02-2012 at 08:29 PM.
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We successfully re-queened a couple of hives last year. We made sure our bottom hive was queenless and removed the super, leaving the brood box. We placed a sheet of newspaper on before placing the brood box with the new queen on top. We left them for a good few days and the next time we looked in the queen had moved to the bottom box and was laying well. We left them on the double deep. Not sure if we were just fortunate but if we need to re-queen this year we will do the same.
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