On Fri, 5 Jan 1996, David Eyre wrote:
 
> I have said a number of times, the North American method of
> throwing chemicals at a problem can only be a stop gap. We
> should be paying more attention to selection against disease!!
 
Of course, that isn't *only* a North American method :-(
 
> I have read with interest all the different methods of
> requeening, cells versus mated queens, forced virgins and some
> I would suggest are really wild!! Some of us seem to miss one
> of the golden rules, taught to me many years ago by my mentor.
>
> "LIKE REPLACES LIKE" No matter how good you are, no matter what
> you try, you cannot force the bees to do what is against mother
> nature. To requeen, the hive has to be ready(naturally) to accept
> that virgin, mated queen or cell, or to even make their own.
 
Good advice, IMHO.
 
My mentor has a useful additional view to that.  He reckons that
you can pretty safely advance by one stage, e.g., replacing
an uncapped Q-cell with a ripe one or a virgin with a mated
queen, and that you can *often* advance by two stages, e.g.,
egg to ripe Q-cell or ripe Q-cell to mated queen. Anything else,
he says, will almost certainly fail. I just believe him ;-)
 
I wonder how many of the "can do it then; can't do it then" tales
are due to this and the natural colony progress.
 
Regards,
--
Gordon Scott   [log in to unmask]   Hampshire, England.
               [log in to unmask]
               Beekeeper; Kendo 3rd Dan; Sometime sailor.
The Basingstoke Beekeeper (newsletter) [log in to unmask]