Hello All

It is a recommended practice to switch strong and weak hives especially
early in the year to even up colonies, always carrying out disease checks
beforehand of course. I need to switch hives shortly and it got me thinking
(I know! thinking can be dangerous!).

Now what is puzzling me is this.

Bees do not like a queen which smells differently to what they have been
used to - (hence the difficulty in introducing queens) - so why is the queen
in each hive not attacked by the bees from the other hive?.

Why do they not behave towards what they must see as a strange queen, as
they would have behaved had she been introduced to them without protection?.
The older flying bees are normally most of the problem during queen
introduction.

Could the fact that the flying bees do not attack the queen in this case be
turned to good account?. To introduce a queen to each of two hives, why not
switch the hives first?. Then all you would have to worry about are the
relatively friendlier house bees.

What do the list think?

Sincerely

Tom Barrett
49 South Park, Foxrock
Dublin 18
Ireland
Tel + 353 1 289 5269