Catherine Duffy asks for ways to requeen a bad tempered colony.  I always do
it by creating a two queen colony in mid to late April.  Give the top queen
a chance to begin laying well (minimum of 30 days) or until July 4 (6 weeks
before the end of the honey flow).  Then I kill the bottom queen and drop
her into the hive on a warm day and put the top brood nest and queen down
into the lower brood nest.  It works every time, to my knowledge.
 
I've tried about every other way that has been discussed but they are less
successful.  Killing the old queen and tossing her in the apiary and then
introducing a new queen in a cage may be from 50 to 80 percent successful,
even on a honey flow.  If you kill the old queen by crushing her on the new
queen cage you can increase acceptance to 80 to 95 percent depending on the
temperament of the old colony.  A two queen colony has always been 100
percent successful judging by the continued presense of the marked queens.
 
James C. Bach
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