Requeening

[omnimirage]

I hear that a queen lives for four years, and that, in order to maximise honey production, it's best to requeen every two years, as an aged queen is not as prolific as a younger queen.

Do you guys requeen every two years? What sort of difference in honey production is there in letting them keep an old queen?

Do you guys replace an old queen? I'm under the impression that if she's laying not consistently, if her eggs are scattered and if there is not many, or if she otherwise simply looks unwell, it can be worth replacing. I'm also under the impression that the bees will replace an old, bad queen themselves; are they good at doing this? Or do they tend to keep bad queens for too long?

When replacing, do you guys add a queen yourself? Or do you find the bad queen, squish her and then let the bees make themselves a new queen? My concern with the latter approach is, I believe the longer the larvae has access to royal jelly, the stronger, healthier more prolific the queen will become, and that sometimes emergency replacement queens can be less productive due to not receiving enough royal jelly.

I also stumbled across this quote:

"If you use hybrid bees or bees of a selected stock in your operation, be sure to requeen regularly. Allowing natural queen replacement usually leads to loss of hybrid vigor and sometimes causes colonies to be quite defensive and thus more difficult to manage."

Found at the bottom of this link:

http://agdev.anr.udel.edu/maarec/beginning-beekeeping-2/selecting-the-right-type-of-bee/

What do you guys think of this? Is this statement true? What does it mean exactly by "of a selected stock"; are they saying if someone orders Ligurians from some breeders, then allow them to naturally replace their queen, then they will become more defensive?

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

What I read was to requeen your hybrids, your carniolians for example with gentle traits.  Due to the fact the gentle offspring with breed with the locals that most likely not as gentle.  The local bees probably  do not possess the traits of the original hybrid.  Therefore these desirable traits are eventually lost with each subsequent breeding to the locals as the years go by.

[AR Beekeeper]

Omni;  The average lifespan of queens in my production colonies is 14 to 16 months, it would be an exceptional queen to last 4 years.  The colonies will requeen themselves if they swarm, or do a supersedure replacement of their queen.  Swarm or Supersedure queens are usually good quality queens because they start from eggs and are destined to become queens from the beginning.  Emergency queens start from a larva intended to become a worker but changed to a queen because of sudden need.  Emergency queens will be a good queen 2 out of 3 times, but the beekeeper needs to keep a watch on her egg laying.

The colony will often lose the virgin on her mating flight, then the beekeeper must replace the lost queen or beekeepers will replace an existing queen if they are not happy with a colony's performance.  I usually replace queens because of a colony's temper, poor disease or parasite control, or excessive food use during the summer months.  I buy queens from queen producers if I want a change in geographical races of bees, such as changing from Italian to Carniolan, a change in a strain of a geographical race, an Italian from one producer to an Italian from another producer with a different strain of queen mothers, otherwise I select queen mothers from my own bees to raise virgins from.

I replace queens when they need replacing, not by their birth date.  I only have a few colonies so I can do this with ease, it's not like I am trying to manage large numbers of colonies.  I try to keep nucs during the summer with new queens to be used as replacements.

Replacing a queen with a new queen received through the mail is different than replacing a failing queen with a laying queen from a nuc.  Search for videos showing requeening methods, and bees showing aggression toward a caged queen.  A warning, if you wait 24 hours as usually recommended before adding a new queen to a colony just made queenless, that has eggs and young larvae, you will have queen cells started and they will not accept your new queen.  You will need to search for queen cells and remove them.  If you add your new caged queen at the time you remove the original queen, the bees will often not start making queen cells, and will accept your new queen much sooner.

Using hybrid queens, hybrids will often not breed true, meaning their offsprings will often not show the same traits as the mother.  The way the different lines of bees are crossed affects the way the bees act, such as an Italian queen crossed with Carniolan drones will usually produce gentle bees, but a Carniolan queen crossed with Italian drones will often produce not so gentle workers.  I am not well versed in breeding bees, so I take Brother Adam's word for it.  If you can access some of his books it will be worth your time.

Using open mated queens are a gamble, we never can predict with certainty how the workers produced will act.  Usually things work well, but sometimes they don't. 

[Vance G]

Unless your genetics are suspect, I don't replace u less she is failing, I am more apt to incite supercedure by moving the queen into a nuc until emergency cells are initiated.  I select the two best cells on the same side of the same frame and kill the rest.  If I don't want more colonies I reunite the nuc to the parent hive after new queen is laying.

[omnimirage]

  A warning, if you wait 24 hours as usually recommended before adding a new queen to a colony just made queenless, that has eggs and young larvae, you will have queen cells started and they will not accept your new queen.  You will need to search for queen cells and remove them.  If you add your new caged queen at the time you remove the original queen, the bees will often not start making queen cells, and will accept your new queen much sooner.

Great information thanks. I am wanting to change the race of my bees. My bees are primarily Dark European Honey bees and I want Ligurians.

I didn't know about the waiting time with mailed queens. Any idea why it's recommended to wait 24 hours, even though when it doesn't seem to be a good idea?

[eltalia]

Great information thanks. I am wanting to change the race of my bees.
 My bees are primarily Dark European Honey bees and I want Ligurians.

Good News. Congrats.

Bill

[omnimirage]

While on the subject, eltalia I think you might find this article to be interesting:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-015-0371-0

[Oldbeavo]

After removing a queen, 4-8 hrs is sufficient for the hive to realise they are queenless.
No guarantee attached.
I find more aggressive bees are harder to requeen, personal experience no scientific evidence.
If you mark your Q's you will be surprised how often Q's are changed without our input.

[beepro]

Some will not even wait that long.  A strong queen they will accept after removing the original queen.  Besides, she is
still inside her cage so the bees still have to get used to her.   You can try half within a few hours and half in 24 hours.  You will
find that it does not matter that much.  What matter is how strong are the queens.   A weak queen they will not accept her no matter
how long you wait.
For production hives I follow the commercial practice of requeening every season in the early Spring.  For the support colonies I will use the
2nd year queens for genetic evaluation.  A first year queen is less likely to swarm than a 2nd year queen.  Along with swarm management perhaps
requeening your production hives annually is your answer.

[omnimirage]

Where do you get your new queens from beepro? What are these support colonies that you speak of?

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

I agree with what Beepro text.  I use different words, such as a mature proven queen as opposed ?strong queen? used by Beepro.  BYW, I also agree with AR and others.

I define a mature secure queen as one which has a proven laying record...  she may be only 3 months old but secure as she has proven she can sustain a hive.  A mature queen walks differently than an unproven nervous virgin.  Certainly a mature queen is more acceptable to a queenless hive.  Now I have not mentioned queenless aggressive hives, that is another story altogether.

I believe my bees recognize queenless conditions in 2 hours or even less.  I put this another way, if I create a walk away split, two hours later the bees on the entrance of the queenless hive will display with nervousness and buzzing sound that they are queenless.  So in two hours, almost always, I know which split is queenless and which split has the original queen.
Blessings

[Acebird]

if I create a walk away split, two hours later the bees on the entrance of the queenless hive will display with nervousness and buzzing sound that they are queenless.

I will look for this in the future.

[beepro]

We can go into the different situation of making a strong or a weak queen.  Or a mature proven or unproven young mated queen.  In any hive environment we have to look at the many factors involved.  I do queen evaluation this way.  Right after the virgin is mated and laying, I will on purpose, put her inside another queen right hive.  If she does not get balled right away then she is a very strong queen.  If left alone either they will accepted a 2 queen hive or got rid of the original laying queen.  Mated queens rarely fight each other inside the same hive.  I've repeated this trials many times to determine whether or not a queen is strong enough to keep for the production hive.  Some beekeepers claimed that their queens can last into their 3rd year and still laying strong.  I found that the first year queen either the Spring or late Autumn queen will serve better for production hive.  Early Spring queen can gather the Spring flow and late Autumn queen can overwinter better in my area.

To answer your questions:
1) Where do you get your new queens from beepro?   I either buy them or make my own here.  We can have new mated queens from as early as late Dec. on.  Or sometime I will wait until April to buy the compatible genetics queens.  This year I don't have to buy any because there are some strong bees with compatible genetics flying as early as late Jan.  They provide the drones and I make the QCs.

2) What are these support colonies that you speak of?  They are either the overwintered late Autumn hives with a proven evaluated strong queen from last season or an early Spring mated queen.  The process you have to find out based on your local bee environment.  You will know after a few seasons of beekeeping there.  If there isn't a proven program yet then you have to follow your local bee environment to make one up.  A bee program that follow the bee environment and cycles will allow you to develop one.  A local beekeeper should point you to the right direction if there is one nearby.   After that I made my own bee program by following the bee seasons.  As we already know the weather really has an influence on how we do beekeeping around the world and locally.  If you don't have one then make up one and follow it every year.  The weather will change but your program will follow with a slight adjustment only. 

Yours:
Do you guys requeen every two years?   Yes, and no.  I just keep on making new queens every year.  The late Autumn queens will overlap the early Spring queens.  When some hives went queen less then I just combine them with another strong hive.  So yes, on purpose to requeen every year not every 2 years.  The strong 2nd years queens will be incorporated into my bee program.

What sort of difference in honey production is there in letting them keep an old queen?  Since I started beekeeping 6 seasons ago, I have never seen a queen that lasted over 2 seasons.  Somehow they either disappeared over the summer or flew into LA LA LAND somewhere.  In another word they automatically dequeen themselves.  I then either combine them with another strong hive or give them a spare queen if I have any.  From my experience a young 6-12 months queen is more prolific in laying.  So naturally she will produce more bees and gather more honey.  That is why I have both the production colonies and the support colonies all in the same bee yard.  If you have land then try to build a support side and a production side.  Then you will really know the difference.  Make one if you don't have one already.

Do you guys replace an old queen?   It depends.  Sometime I will if the queen is too weak or found out that she is a drone layer in the middle of the season.  Since I rear new queens every season, I just keep on making splits out of them.  Old queens go into the small nucs.

I'm also under the impression that the bees will replace an old, bad queen themselves; are they good at doing this? Yes, my bees are very good at replacing an old outdated queen.  Even a queen with a bad hind leg they will make supersedure cells.  No hive want to have a weak queen that hinder their survival.

Or do they tend to keep bad queens for too long?  Nope, they will replace her right away even in the cold of winter.  One season, I think in my 4th, there was a Cordovan queen hive that kept on producing the supersedure cells, week after week when I removed these cells into late Dec.  Found out later on that they got a bad queen not laying too well.

When replacing, do you guys add a queen yourself? Or do you find the bad queen, squish her and then let the bees make themselves a new queen?
Sometimes I will add a new queen or combine a queen less hive with a queen right hive.  They will take care of the old queen without you squishing it.  Sometimes I will let them make a new queen in queen rearing seasons.  It is your preference whether or not you want them to make it or you graft it yourself.  Remember, in the bee world you make it to BEEs!   Do you know how?

....then allow them to naturally replace their queen, then they will become more defensive?
Pertaining to the article above, from my experience if your local DCAs are saturated with the AHB genetics then your bees will become
quite defensive.  If your hives are gentle that supply all the drones going to the local DCAs then you will have the gentle type bees.  It needs to have both gentle types to produce the gentle bees.  I recommend you to get some Cordovan queens for this area of genetic learning and experience.