Hi all
This question comes up once in a while, forgive me if I posted on it already. But this seemed like a concise description, if anyone needs it.


“Associación Gaucha de Apicultores” (The Peasant Beekeepers’ Assoaciation) in Rio Grande do Sul State (Brazil), recommends the following method for requeening African colonies:

Before the operation, the beekeeper must take efficient protection measures: light, self-coloured thick cloth, large overalls, thick, rubber-coated gloves – yellow if possible resistant gauze, thin wire net, with sleeves introduced in the gloves. Intruders and animals must be driven away, at least 200 m distance.

The hive with African bees is moved to another place. A hive body is put instead of it, with new combs with brood and eggs from gentle colonies. The African foragers will come back to their former location and will build queen cells from which a gentler queen will emerge.
After one day, the African aggressive queen in the hive which had been moved to another place, is replaced by a new queen, or a frame with sealed queen cells – taken from the other colony – is introduced into the hive.

The searching for the queen will proceed more simply and will be less dangerous, because in the hive only a small number of bees remain – most of the foragers being lost -, and only the new population is important.

Prof. N. KEMPFF MERCADO
Apiacta 3, 1973

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