Stan Sandler wrote:
>
> I was checking some hives yesterday which I had requeened a couple of weeks
> earlier. I had killed the queens and left the hives queenless for a day.
> Then I removed three outside frames and introduced three frame nucs with
> laying queens into the middle of the top box.  I found that some of the
> hives had killed their new queen and are queenless.  I doubt that I would
> have had any problem earlier, but the bees are in intense robbing mode.
> What should I have done differently?  I would rather not have to use
> newspaper and extra boxes if there was another method.  Has anyone tried
> spraying the bees with light syrup?  If I had waiting two weeks I could have
> made the introductions after I started feeding, but the nucs were getting
> crowded in three frames.
 
There is a method that a beekeeper here has invented that works to 99%
for me.
I look up the old queen and put her in a cage between frames in the
broodnest.
After TWO days I remove the cage with the old queen and replace it with
another
cage containing the new queen. That cage should have no attendants and
the bees
should be able to eat her out.
 
I have done this at all times of year. It is important that the old
queen is left
two days only, otherwise the bees start to make emergency cells and will
not accept
the new queen. The bees feel there is something wrong with the queen
when she
can't walk around and put her feromones on the comb. After two days they
decide
they need a new queen, but they will not start cells quite yet. That's
when the
beekeeper supply them with what they feel they need, and everyone is
happy :-)
 
The fellow that thought this out is Lars Hedlund, beekeeper in Sweden.
 
--
Regards
 
P-O Gustafsson, Sweden
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