I origianlly saw the show on TLC (The Learning Channel). The point
about African queens emerging one day earlier has to do with swarm and
supercedure cells. The African queen emerges and then kills her sisters or
half sisters as the case may be.
 
        If you requeen with a queen which has not mated with any African
drones then the first generation queens will be free of any African genes. So
swarms of supercedure queens will be okay. However since these first
generation queens mate in an uncontrolled environment the female offspring
may well be from African drone matings. Thus the hives temperment may be
partially African, depending on the proportion of matings with African
drones. The second generation queen cells may produce Afican queens which
emerge a day earlier and ensure genetic dominance.
 
        It is these African queens that will cause the biggest problems as
now the drone offspring are African. These drones are the ones that cause the
spread of the Africanized genes far and wide.
 
        This is the reason for prompt requeening of suspected Africanized
hives. The first generation only the workers are Africanized and it is a hive
problem. This is an alert signal! The next generation it is the workers and
the drones. Now it is not just a hive problem but a local problem and the
drones are free to mate far and wide.
 
        So be quick about requeening cranky hives and keep the hive from
making any queen cells that produce Africanized queens and there will be far
fewer Africanized drones about.
 
        Happily here in Afican bee free New England, but requeening cranky
hives anyway. Who knows maybe one of those southern queens did mate with an
African drone!
 
        Jim Moore
        2nd year, 5 hives
        Massachusetts