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Date: | Thu, 2 Jun 2016 20:22:11 +0100 |
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>Acceptance went down
as the virgin queen aged. Acceptance was better for just emerged queens.
It was also better in mini mating nucs than in full size colonies.
I tried it because some years ago there was a post on Bee-L claiming that this was an easy way to re-queen a colony; just run a virgin in with plenty of smoke and she will kill the existing queen and take over the colony. A high rate of success (90%?) was claimed.
Having thought about it since, it now seems a very poor idea! If the V kills the queen then the colony is dependent on her mating and laying good brood. Even if that goes well, there will be a break in brood rearing of, perhaps, up to a month - queens can be notoriously slow in starting to lay in a large colony. There is also the possibility of a large mating swarm departing never to return. If the V fails then there is almost certain that the remaining brood will be too old for the colony to produce a new queen.
Safer to mate virgins in nucs so that you can see their performance before risking a full colony I think.
Best wishes
Peter
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W
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