On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 7:51 PM, Bill T <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
> When I checked the colonies a couple weeks later, there were no eggs or
> larva so I thought the queens were a bust. They were Russians and I learned
> on the list about the fact that non-Russian bees did not accept Russian
> queens.
>

I would not be so quick to blame the fact that the queens were Russian.
The acceptance of any queens is going to be poor if the bees have already
started queen cells, which seems to have been the case.

This fact has some practical significance in requeening.  I have heard
people recommend a day of queenlessness before introducing a new queen, but
in my opinion that gives the bees a day to begin emergency cells which then
lowers acceptance rate.  I prefer to maserate the old queen on the queen
cage and introduce the new queen immediately.

But even then queen acceptance rate is inversely proportional to hive
strength (which makes sense from an evolutionary viewpoint: the best
genetics hardest to change).

Stan

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html