Mark the new queens.  It only takes a minute for each queen, and it enables
you to track her.  Otherwise, you will have idea what sort of queen you have
in your colonies (expensive pedigreed, supersedure, old, swarm, or whatever).
 If you are going to go through the time and effort of requeening you
colonies, you should at least be able to see that the new queens took.
 
How to requeen a colony without getting rid of the old queen has been a
researcher's "holy grail" since the origin of requeening.  If somebody can
figure out how to do it, let us all know!   Until then, I'm afraid you have
no choice but to find and dispose of your old queens as part of your
requeening, and you'll learn that marked queens are far easier to find.
 
My personal choice for Fall requeening is the "Nuc" method (description
available on request), but that method is labor intensive.  Two trips to each
hive are required (trips are two weeks apart).   Each trip will take about 15
minutes open hive time (or longer if queens cannot be readily found). but
acceptance is excellent.
 
 
W. G. Miller
Gaithersburg, MD
 
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W. G. Miller
Gaithersburg, MD
 
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