Hi Bob and All,

You wrote:

> We requeen on a regular basis. At times up to four beekeepers finding and
> dispatching old queens.

Can I safely assume that this includes fall requeening?

I have read a lot of good things about fall requeening and would really like
to do that in my 60+ hives (maybe more by next fall). I certainly appreciate
all the posts that have been submitted on this subject and have saved most
of them. I am  however, having difficulty bringing all this information
together and applying it in a practical way to my situation.

I'm pretty familiar with most of the techniques for finding a queen but am
not a 'professional' at it so sometimes I really have to tear a hive apart.

In fall my hives are full of bees and honey. Should I really be tearing my
hive apart looking for a queen that I might not find. And if I don't find
her, but (not knowingly) kill in the process  of looking for  her, what
then?

I've read so much about not disturbing the brood nest after the end of July
(or somewhat later depending on who you read and what your location is).

I can manage lifting my shallow depth honey supers, but full sized brood
chambers are a much greater challenge for my old back. I've thought about
going all shallow, but because our nectar flow is very unpredictable here,
it has been a real challenge to get what comb drawn I already have. At my
age I don't know that I want to discard all my full sized fully drawn
equipment.

Lloyd suggested requeening using four frame nucs. But what would I do with a
120 plus frames full of honey that I'd be taking out to make room to put in
the nuc frames. I certainly don't want to extract honey from contaminated
brood frames. I've tried putting them on top of the hive in various
configurations, none seem too successful for me.

The approach of using a queen cell fastened to a honey comb seems like a
good idea. Thanks for your post on that Lloyd. So far my two efforts at
raising queens met with limited success. Must give that another try. So far
I take frames of eggs from strong hives and make up double nucs that I use
in spring as needed. They almost always make good queens themselves. Plus I
buy whatever extra queens I need. They have the added advantage that I get
professionally bred quality stock into my gene pool.

In summary, I would very much like to requeen in fall, but how do I do it
within my constraints. The biggest is my limited experience of barely five
years of beekeeping.

There are no large beekeepers in my immediate area, a rather cool/damp
unpredictable climate (just
north of the Okanagan, 51 deg lat. 120 deg long). Maybe there's a reason?
Maybe I shouldn't have so many hives, but people just beg for my honey as it
comes off the extractor no matter what price I charge. We even had a long
distance phone call from a 73 year old grandmother in Germany, just wanting
to tell us that ours was the best honey she has ever tasted. That's pretty
satisfying. Everything about beekeeping is very satisfying for both myself
and my wife.

All the best to all for the coming season!

Cheers, Bob

> -----Original Message-----
> Behalf Of Bob Harrison
> Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 8:39 AM


> We requeen on a regular basis. At times up to four beekeepers finding and
> dispatching old queens.
> We do not install a new queen until the old queen has been dispatched.
> If another queen is in the hive then usually the new caged queen is killed
> in the cage. The method I use to install new queens lets me know for sure
> when two queens were in the hive . My guess would be one in
> around 200 hives
> has two laying queens.
>
> Sincerely,
> Bob Harrison
>

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