Waldemar wrote, ” He has a failing queen (poor brood pattern with a lot of
drone cells) and he's getting a new queen. He would like to save the old
queen (no heart to kill her) as a back-up until the new queen has been
accepted.” in the original thread.

When I was a younger life was more simplistic with higher ideals,
concepts, and goals.  As time goes on so does life with all its births and
passings. Losing things that you love such as your parents, brothers, even
your family pet can be heartbreaking to say the very least.

Enter beekeeping: True, I used to dislike to the point of absolution
disposing a queen. I quickly found out that if I kept the old queen, drone
layer, especially a laying worker, acceptance of a new queen rapidly
became a problem, an expensive problem since each attempt of introducing a
caged queen would fail and the colony would become so weak that it could
not survive. Take the old queen to a veterinarian for euthanization if you
must, I realize that a honeybee is not like a wasp or a fly that you would
hit with a fly swatter. There are some people who believe that you should
not kill any living thing, that’s your call.  But if you wish to be a
beekeeper, even the gentlest of all beekeepers will occasionally injure or
kill a bee, its part of the job. And, unfortunately its part of the job to
dispose of the failing queen. If you put her out of the hive IMO you are
doing her more harm and suffering than a swift and painless end; if you
keep her in the hive you IMO are prolonging suffering of the individual
workers that  remain and giving the remaining brood no chance to survive
since the hive quickly becomes infested with drones, and nurse bees
diminish in numbers as there are fewer and fewer workers hatching to
support the hive.  When you get down to if you want to be a beekeeper then
you sometimes must do things that are against your grain, so to speak. I
replace every queen every year, sometimes twice a year. If I kept the old
queen each time I would not be a successful beekeeper, I would be out of a
job. Keep the old queen or kill her, its always a personal choice. My
choice is to keep my bees and be a better beekeeper.

Regards,

Chuck Norton
Norton’s Nut & Honey Farm
Reidsville, NC

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