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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
Grant Gillard <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 13 Jul 2006 17:40:52 -0700
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I would requeen.  My early experience with hot bees (mostly feral swarms) was to simply find and kill off the swarm queen, then let the colony make a supersedure/emergency queen cell, or cells.  Since these were swarms, I figured I had an old queen of unverifiable age and she would eventually need replacing anyway.  I simply squished her.
   
  Fortunately, when I grew tired of their "attitude," the colony was not overly crowded.  The queen, unmarked, was fairly easy to find.  I let them raise a new queen as it was usually too late in the season to justify the expense of a single queen from a reputable breeder.  The shipping cost is a killer, and the likelihood of any honey crop was, well, unlikely.
   
  I found, in these situations, that the resulting queen that eventually took over the colony produced docile bees, but then they mated with my local drones, mostly Italians and Carnolians.  The next year they did quite well.  
   
  It is a common thought that the drones contribute the genetics that result in the "attitude" of the hive.  I wonder about the chances, in your situation, of a new virgin queen mating with the drones of this hot hive if you simply killed off the old queen.  Would you not get another queen that produced another generation of hot bees?  Unfortunately, it takes about six weeks to really see any change.  As this is now mid-July, you'd not know if you were successful until next year.
   
  And, of course, you, in your situation, still have to find the old queen.  Here are my two suggestions.
   
  If you move all the brood boxes and hive bodies to a new location about ten feet away, and set up a "dummy" hive in the old location, LOTS of bees will head back to the dummy hive on the original location making it easier to find the old queen in the brood boxes at the new location.  Once found, you can kill her and reunite the hive bodies back on the old hive stand and requeen (although my best luck in introducing queens takes place in smaller nucs).
   
  Or order a dozen new queens and start tearing apart the hot hive making up a bunch of smaller nucs.  Eventually, you'll find the old queen in the process.  But this late in the season, I wonder if you can find queens still for sale.
   
  I'm sorry for your experience.  I have had nothing but great success from B. Weaver.  Their queens have always been good and I've ordered several queens from different lines that they offer.
   
  Best of luck to you,
   
  Grant
  Jackson, MO
   
  "A trying time is no time to quit trying."

 		
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