Last winter Eric Mussen referred to a paper in his news letter written by
David Tarpy and Jeffery Lee about requeening an Italian hive
with a Russian queen. Here is the paper
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/apiculture/pdfs/2.16%20copy.pdf

This season a
local supplier started selling Russian queens
and since I had read "
A Comparison of Russian and Italian Honey Bees
"
 last winter it has
help
ed
me understand what is going on
.
I am getting phone calls from people who have Italian bees and bought a
Russian queen or started a nuc with a Russian queen and failed to have a
good introduction. There was a nuc workshop recently where people got a
divided hive, two queens and they were taught how to make splits. They
could choose between Carlionian or Russian queens. Some people chose one of
each and have had failure with the Russian. I only hear about the failures
so I do not know how many succeeded. One person tried two different times
to requeen an Italian hive with a Russian both times failing at the cost of
$35 a queen. I get the calls because I sell queens, I have Maine bred
queens, Italians and Carniolan's. No one ever has problems with a Carlionian in
an Italian hive or the other way around.

The paper states "The requeening procedure has frustrated many beekeepers
because standard introduction techniques often
are not successful when requeening Italian colonies with Russian queens, as
the colonies may reject the new
queens.
"

T
his has been proven true. I posted the link to this paper to my bee club
email list when I got the first phone call but it hasn't seemed to help, no
one seemed to read it.

Has any one here had luck with introducing a Russian queen to Italian hive
with out the long adjustment period?

Have a happy Independence day,

Karen

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