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Author Topic: Re Queen question  (Read 1533 times)

Offline Nock

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Re Queen question
« on: April 29, 2020, 10:49:26 pm »
So I did first inspection on the hive I cut out of the tree.  It?s been 1 1/2 weeks now. They are mean as heck.  I smoked them and then went through couple other hives. Came back to them and smoked again and popped the cover. On me from the get go. I was working them and three got inside my hood. Luckily never stung me on the face. I walked away probably 50 yards and they were still following me. I smoked myself down. Finally got to were I could get out of my veil. Still had a couple try to get me then. I got the bees out of my suit. Went back and right back on me. I finished inspection button them up. So I guess I need to re Queen. This will be my first time. When I remove the old Queen do I go ahead immediately and add new Queen (caged) or do you need to wait X amount of time? 

Online Ben Framed

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2020, 01:15:31 am »
Nock I have never requeened, but I have made splits. When I make a split and introducing a new queen to that split, I wait about 6 hours before placing the new caged queen in the queenless split. Now remember, I am a beginner as are you. So don't take my word for it literally. I would not want to tell your wrong. However it works for me on a split.
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Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2020, 07:26:03 am »
Nock,
Wait at least a couple of hours but not to long. In one hour they will know what hey are queenless. If you wait too long they start making a new queen. Once they have queen cells they may not want to accept a new queen.  The meaner the bees the more they tend to not to accept a new queen. Africanized bees are hard to requeen.
I would put her in after 2 to 3 hours.
Jim Altmiller
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
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Offline Oldbeavo

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2020, 07:57:31 am »
Nasty hives are hard to requeen, we find that most of the time the kill the introduced queen, no matter what system we use.
Our normal procedure for nasty hives is to bump off the queen, remove all frames with eggs on them, and then give them a frame of eggs from a docile hive.
They then end up with a nice hive of quiet bees.
Also saves the cost of a queen that will probably be lost.

Offline Nock

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #4 on: April 30, 2020, 08:48:51 am »
I was thinking you needed to wait long enough for them to know they were queenless. It?s a big hive. I may wait till after our flow. Then do some splits or re Queen. I was also thinking about trying to raise some Queens as well. I?ll do some more pondering on my next move. Thanks for input.

Offline Acebird

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #5 on: April 30, 2020, 08:49:20 am »

They then end up with a nice hive of quiet bees.

Only downside is you have about a month of nastiness to endure.
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Online Ben Framed

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #6 on: April 30, 2020, 09:29:48 am »
Something else to consider, I would not want any drones to develop from this hive. As I understand it drones throw the temperment genes to the next generation. Some say the queens fly too far away for drones to mate with queens from the same yard, think of your neighbors hives, or local feral hives. You would not want their queens to mate with your vicious instinctive drones. Remember what goes around comes back around. Some day your queens may mate with their (soon to be vicious drones), If you allow this to continue. Just my opinion. Not only would I try to requeen, I would make sure no drones hatch form this hive.

If I'm not mistaken, HoneyPump mentioned spraying the queen with a sugar water / honey bee healthy mix while introducing. I know for sure Tim Durham does the same while also spraying the entire hive lightly with this mixture. This may help in acceptance in a mean hive situation, I do not know.
2 Chronicles 7:14
14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Offline beesnweeds

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #7 on: April 30, 2020, 12:57:52 pm »
Since its a hot hive, I would divide it into 4 nucs.  Easier to handle and easier to requeen.
Everyone loves a worker.... until its laying.

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #8 on: April 30, 2020, 01:13:04 pm »
Nock, couple of questions and suggestions.

Q- do they have a laying queen right now?  They may be cranky if their queen is gone, injured, and a new queen is in process of getting mated.  Or new queen was lost and they are getting frantic.  It may be they just need time (2 weeks) to settle down.  Perhaps doing NOTHING is the best option for the time being.
Q- how much brood is in the hive now?
Q- how big is this hive you are talking about?  How many boxes are filled with bees.  The options 2 and 3 presented below are dealing with a robust hive.  If you are dealing with a hive that is only one box, then do Option 1.

I concur with the advice that a knarly hive is difficult to requeen. There are different ways to requeen them without sacrificing a perfectly good new queen. Basically the approach is as follows:

First is to prepare your contingency.  Makeup your backup colony. Buy the queen you want. Go to your choicest bestest gentlest hive.  Makeup a nuc and fill it with 1 frame of brood all stages and 3 frames worth of bees. Setup your new queen in the nuc as typical caged introduction with candy release. Place that nuc out somewhere and forget about it for 2 weeks.

Now time to deal with the Knarly Clan.
- First find the queen, or queens as there could be more than one, and kill them all.  Shaking all the bees through a queen excluder will find the queen(s), and the drones.  Once that is done you have options to pick from.

Option 1:  Split up and remove the hive.
- Completely split up the hive and redistribute all of it to your other hives. Newspaper combine the bees and resources in boxes atop your other colonies. 
- Remove all of the hive components from the current spot so bees are unable to return there.
- This may make your other hives a bit edgy for a few days so stay out of the beeyard for a week.
- In 2 weeks time, go get that contingency nuc with the nice queen and set her up in a new hive where the Knarlys were. Boost her with brood and bees from your other hives to get it up to par.

Option 2:  Nuc - Em all, give them cells
- Split up the hive and distribute all the bees and resources into multiple nucleus colonies.
- Completely remove the hive components from the current spot so bees are unable to return there.
- Wait 4 to 24 hours, then give each nuc a ripe queen cell grafted from your choicest queen bee. Put cell protectors on the ripe cells so the crazy mad bees do not tear it down. They will not hurt an emerging queen but they may tear down a ripe cell.
- Wait 3 weeks.  Find which one(s) are mated and laying up a storm.
- Recombine the failed nucs with the successful one(s) into a hive.
- Go pickup that contingency nuc you made up at the beginning, sell it.

Option 3:  Requeen with cells
If you are in middle of a flow and want to REALLY boost honey production, this is your best option. First, find and kill the queen(s) in the hive.
- Remove all brood, distribute it into your other hives.  Ensure to be adding space to those other hives to accommodate the boost in population when the brood emerges.
- The Knarly hive is now hopelessly queenless, no queen, no brood.  Give them 4 to 24 hours to settle down. Regardless of how much time you give they will still be cranky and now frantic anyways.
- Place 2 ripe queen cells from your choicest queen. Put cell protectors on them.  Place the cells centered but 1 frame apart in the bottom brood box.
- Put a queen excluder on that bottom box. Stack your honey supers above the queen excluder. No second brood box.
- Wait and watch. Check for honey and harvest regularly. With no brood to feed the supers will fill remarkably fast. When checking and harvesting the honey, stay out of the bottom box!
- At 3 weeks, go down into the bottom box to check for eggs and larvae. 
.        - Success?  Then add your second brood box if you wish and carry on.   Sell the contingency nuc.
.        - Failed? If the queen cells or the VQ failed, the hive will then be dwindling fast as old bees die off and probably has developed laying workers.  At that point split it up and combine the resources with your other hives or/and shake out.   Then go get that contingency nuc you made at the beginning of all this and set her up in a new hive nearby, but not in the same spot.

-->. Take notice that none of those options presented is there one that introduces a mated queen into the Knarly hive.  This is important!

Hope that helps.
THP
« Last Edit: April 30, 2020, 01:50:00 pm by TheHoneyPump »
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline CoolBees

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #9 on: April 30, 2020, 05:11:10 pm »
Something else to consider, I would not want any drones to develop from this hive. As I understand it drones throw the temperment genes to the next generation. Some say the queens fly too far away for drones to mate with queens from the same yard, think of your neighbors hives, or local feral hives. You would not want their queens to mate with your vicious instinctive drones. Remember what goes around comes back around. Some day your queens may mate with their (soon to be vicious drones), ...

Thats a really good point Phillip.

That would be a good application for a queen excluder. Condense the brood nest so she doesn't have room to lay drones, and exclude her from moving up - all while taking advantage of the hives production capacity.

Very good info all through this thread!
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Offline Nock

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #10 on: April 30, 2020, 11:03:31 pm »
Man HP that?s a lot to take in. I?ve read it twice and will have to go back through again. Thanks for taking the time to post all of that. I framed up 7 frames of cut out comb. I gave them one honey frame. And two frames of wax rite. This is a deep. It was packed with bees so I gave it another deep when I brought it home. I moved some brood up in upper box. For some reason they really hadn?t done much in upper box. Not what I would?ve thought. Bottom box is still packed. Bees on all frames. I didn?t see any eggs but I didn?t get very far either. I did see young larva. Like the size that was described as ideal age in the grafting thread. I will go back through in a couple of days and see if it was a fluke or if they are mean. Conditions wise yesterday it had just rained with some thunder and it was last hour of day. But the other 5 hives acted fine. I do like you suggestion about using this one to boost honey production. Our flow is fixing to start. Thanks

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #11 on: May 01, 2020, 12:26:49 am »
? Conditions wise yesterday it had just rained with some thunder and it was last hour of day.?

With that statement, I would not do anything with this hive. I took the worst stings to my face ever after searching a calm hive for over an hour looking for the queen and had a storm brew up just after sundown.
They were not mean bees, it was the time and weather.
My be inspector came for an inspection with a storm looming close by. I questioned this and he insisted it was ok. One of 5 hives lit him up bad even with a bee jacket and hood on. He even went so far as to test for Africanized Bees. The test was negative.
Weather can really makes the bees irritable.
Jim Altmiller
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Online Ben Framed

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #12 on: May 01, 2020, 02:20:52 am »
Nock the first question that HP ask you was if you have a laying queen. From the picture that you showed us when you caught her during the cutout, she looked healthy. She should be a layer unless she was damaged. Being you saw larva today, the right age for grafting, means she is laying. Because you caught her about a week and a half ago?

As I remember from reading you told us your buddy helping you got lit up by these bees as you was doing the cutout. Being they had just been cut out of a log, that might have brought on the ill behavior. Conditions considering, Jim and HPs suggestion deserves the benefit of the doubt in my opinion. Maybe consider giving them a little time checking them on a nice day and see what happens.  I hope this works out for you. Interesting subject.

HP
"It may be they just need time (2 weeks) to settle down.  Perhaps doing NOTHING is the best option for the time being."

Jim
"I would not do anything with this hive. I took the worst stings to my face ever after searching a calm hive for over an hour looking for the queen and had a storm brew up just after sundown.
They were not mean bees, it was the time and weather."
2 Chronicles 7:14
14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Online Ben Framed

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #13 on: May 01, 2020, 02:48:23 am »
CoolBees
"That would be a good application for a queen excluder. Condense the brood nest so she doesn't have room to lay drones, and exclude her from moving up - all while taking advantage of the hives production capacity.

Very good info all through this thread!"


Good idea Alan.
« Last Edit: May 01, 2020, 03:04:14 am by Ben Framed »
2 Chronicles 7:14
14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Offline Nock

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Re: Re Queen question
« Reply #14 on: May 01, 2020, 07:49:27 am »
Yeah I?m going to give them so time. The Queen was healthy and mated. Caught her in a clip. She looked fine next day when I released her. I agree looks of good info in this one.