I know of two methods of fall requeening lots of colonies without finding
the 'old' queen.

1.  Requeen from a nuc.  Set up nucs in July with marked queens.  Depending
on just where you are geographically, by sometime in July all your bees for
production have emerged.  Taking a few frames of brood and enough bees to
tend the brood will not hurt current year production.

Sometime in September/October (in September in Canada, October in Virginia),
combine nucs with hives you want to requeen.  If you are running four frame
nucs, take out four frames and replace with the frames from the nuc,
including the covering bees, brood, and the queen.  No need for newspaper,
screens, etc.

You have now made a two-queen hive, but at sometime in the future the 'old'
queen will disappear and the new (marked) queen will survive.

At least that is the theory...I have found that better than 90% of the time
the new queen is the one there in the spring.  Occasionally I see an
unmarked queen in the spring and then I figure that a supercedure was in
process when I introduced the nuc.  I have NEVER seen an 'old' marked queen
the following spring.

What does one do with the four frames taken out of the hive?  Depends...if
your hives are heavy enough, take out full frames and extract them.  If not,
combine frames into hive bodies, leave a small opening, and let the bees rob
them.  Protect them from wax moth until you need them in the spring.

2.  Put a queen cell in a HONEY frame in the fall.  The theory is that the
existing queen will not find the cell, the cell queen will emerge and mate
and the 'old' queen will disappear.

I am told that this practice is widely followed in the southern states (by
migratory beekeepers who are requeening) and is based on work done by a
Canadian scientist, who claimed success of over 90%.  If anyone can tell us
of an accessible source for this work I would appreciate it.

Lloyd
Lloyd Spear, Owner Ross Rounds, Inc.
Manufacturers of Ross Rounds Comb
Honey Equipment, Sundance Pollen Traps
and Custom Printer of Sundance Labels.

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