>John asks:
>  I have heard/read that some Russian queens need special introduction
>methods.

Bob replies:
>The Russian/Russian queens are harder to introduce   A push in cage
>over emerging brood is the recommended
>  To requeen a full size hive I recommend the above method in a nuc and then
>once the queen is established use the nuc to requeen the hive.


My standard re-queening method may be helpful here. Even with non-Russian
bees, direct re-queening can be troublesome. Often, there are actually 2
queens in the colony to be re-queened, and the newly introduced queen is
killed after only one of the old queens is dispatched. Making a nuc almost
guarantees acceptance of the new queen.

I use the top brood box of a two story hive as the nuc. Shake ALL the bees
from the top box back into the colony. Place the bee-less combs back into
the box, and place over an excluder, on top of the bottom box. Allow the
bees to re-populate the combs overnight. The old queen(s) will be left
below. Next day, replace excluder with a solid inner cover...escape hole
closed with duct tape...and an entrance to the rear for the top box. Give
caged queen. All the old bees fly back to the bottom unit, leaving only
young bees, that readily accept a new, caged queen. Once the new queen is
laying well...3 to 4 weeks...kill old queen(s) below, and unite with
newspaper.

This method has a high rate of success, and uses no extra equipment. No
need to find a home for those extra combs created when uniting a nuc with
the re-queened colony. When on a flow, the bottom unit will need supers,
because they have all the field bees.
Mike



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