On Sun, 21 Apr 1996, Frank Humphrey wrote:
> You will have to find the old queen and kill her or else the
> workers will kill the new queen.
Vitaly important fact. Never forget it. I would change that first
'kill' to 'remove' though.
You should get used to finding queens, it's a very useful skill
for a beekeeper. If you can't find her but she's there somewhere,
you could split the colony into two hives and check for a queen
later. Generally, the queenless hive will be very excited within
the hour.
Of course, you probably _still_ have to find that old queen
sometime, but at least you have a smaller box to search through
and you could keep the old queen for a while in case the new one
gets rejected. Unite the colonies later (one queen, of course).
Regards,
--
Gordon Scott [log in to unmask][log in to unmask] (work)
The Basingstoke Beekeeper (newsletter) [log in to unmask]
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Beekeeper; Kendo 3rd Dan; Sometime sailor. Hampshire, England.