Hi all
One of the issues in best management practices is the prevention of Africanization in managed colonies. It is often recommended that beekeepers requeen regularly, and/or requeen colonies that express aggressive or hostile behavior. Aside from the difficulty in finding a queen in a vicious hive, there is the problem of acceptance. This study shows that about half the introduced queens in AHB colonies were retained. They refer to stages 1 = acceptance during the first week after introduction and 2 = weeks 2– 6 after introduction when the queen was becoming established but the colony was only partly comprised of her offspring.  

> after 6 weeks only about 58% of the introduced queens were still alive in the AHB colonies. Thus, while queen acceptance might be relatively high in AHB colonies during stage-1, many queens do not survive long enough for the population to be comprised predominantly of the offspring from the introduced queen. 

> Furthermore, the comparable queen acceptance and retention rates of introduced EHB or AHB queens in AHB colonies in this and previous studies (Guzman- Novoa et al., 1998) suggests that rejection of introduced queens could occur at a relatively high frequency in AHB colonies regardless of whether the queen is EHB or AHB.

> Whether a queen is accepted and retained by a colony appears to be affected by season. Queen rejection during stage-1 or -2 was highest in the summer introductions, and lowest in the fall. 

> However, there is risk involved with fall requeening in Africanized areas. Usurpation swarms of African bees can invade European colonies especially if they are queenless or have caged queens as they often do when being requeened (Danka et al., 1992; Schneider et al., 2004). The usurpation swarms most frequently occur in the fall so while it is perhaps the best time to requeen colonies, EHB hives need to be closely monitored to prevent Africanization from usurpation swarms.

PLB

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