>In such a situation you definitely shouldn't use smoke because of the fire risk when you pour petrol on them!


Probably no need for the petrol treatment - I have often seen colonies change almost instantly when re-queened.  The most notable was when I killed a queen in a bad tempered colony and threw her body into the undergrowth; the colony immediately went quiet, even before I had introduced the new queen.  It was quite uncanny.

Seems to me that pheromones are probably more significant than genetics (OK, perhaps pheromones are linked to the genetics, but you probably know what I mean!).  The old wisdom that you have to wait for all the old bees to die off after re-queening before you see an improvement seems patently untrue in my experience of dealing with 'meeters and greeters'.

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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