I had an interesting experience this week.  For a not a very good reason, I used deeps on one hive for supers this spring.  They were close at hand and I used them.  This hive had 3 deeps for the nest, then 2 deep supers w/ 8 frames each, and 2 mediums on top.  No excluder.

The colony filled and capped both deep supers on a good black locust flow.  This was a tall hive and I did not want to lift the heavy boxes back up on top of the hive so I placed them over an escape board on a one-deep colony I'd made up from a split a couple of weeks earlier.  The intent was for the flight-age bees to come out and return to the original colony and the young bees to strengthen the one-deep colony.

I looked at the 2 deep supers through the inner cover hole the next day and saw there more bees than I am used to seeing in this kind of a situation and they seemed calm/content.  It occurred to me the queen from the original colony might be with them!  I did the same this morning.  There were fewer bees but still more that usual.

I removed the frames one by one and brushed the bees off of the frames [w/ a Canada goose feather] in front of the original colony until I came across the frame with the queen.  I caged her and put the cage over the inner cover hole of the original colony.  The bees seemed fairly friendly towards the queen and I let the cage sit there for a few minutes.  Then I opened the cage and let the queen walk out onto the inner cover.  A few bees started feeding the queen while others proceeded to groom her.  The queen paused mostly allowing the bees to take in her scent.  After a couple of minutes more bees crowded around the queen.  A couple of them on top of the queen arched their bodies in the classic, unfriendly manner.

I recaged the queen not willing to lose her in potential balling.

I am wondering: how long does it take for a colony to 'forget' their queen's scent?  I suspect the larger the colony the more resistant it will be to the returning queen.  Anybody has a good feel for this or has references to studies on this?  It only takes a few unfriendly bees to initiate and execute balling.

Thanks,

Waldemar

  

____________________________________________________________
Go Green! # 1 Energy Pick
Think Big Oil has a future? AEGY - Think Green, Renewable Energy!
http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL3231/4c1a12d99e69543b058st02duc

             ***********************************************
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

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm