A SAFE AND SIMPLE METHOD OF REQUEENING A BAD-TEMPERED STOCK

By L. ILLINGWORTH

In the middle of a nice day, when bees are flying well, remove the bad-tempered stock bodily to a new position about a dozen yards away. It matters little where you put it as it will only have to remain there a few hours, but, for preference, place it near a weak colony that could do with a few extra bees. There need be little difficulty in moving such a stock provided it is in a single brood-chamber, and not heavily supered. If the hive is too heavy to lift easily, obtain help, and if necessary, stuff up the entrance temporarily to prevent the bees rushing out and stinging badly during the removal. Alternatively, supers can be removed, set aside and covered up, to lighten the hive so that one person can carry it.

Now set up an empty hive on the old stand and provide it with empty combs, or partly combs and partly foundation ; no brood should be given, but it will be all the better if some of the combs contain honey and pollen. Have a laying queen ready in a candy cage so that she can be released automatically by the bees eating the candy, and fix the cage with the queen between the centre combs in the new hive. Cover up the brood-chamber and set on a feeder. The bees should be fed liberally for a few days unless there is a good honey flow on at the time. This is all the more important if the new queen is a valuable one, as she is much more likely to be accepted if the colony is fed. Alternatively, if the bees are not too bad-tempered, a super containing honey taken from the moved stock may be set on the brood-chamber of the new hive on the old stand, after the caged queen has been given, if it is quite certain that the old queen cannot be in the super and that it contains no brood.

By the time the above arrangements have been made and a roof set on the new hive on the old stand, it will be found that all the flying bees have left the moved stock. As soon as no bees are seen flying in and out of the moved hive, or any time during the next day or two, it will be found quite easy to open the moved hive, find the queen, and destroy her. The young bees that remain will not be disposed to sting. As soon as the undesirable queen has been removed the rest of the bees, now quite harmless, may be shaken off the combs on to the alighting-board of the new hive on the old stand, and allowed to run in and join their companions and the caged queen. The combs of bare brood may be given to any stocks in the apiary that need strengthening, but it is not advisable to give them to the bad-tempered bees with the caged queen.

The operation is now complete and the moved hive can be cleared away. Any bees that get lost will either return to the old stand or enter the colony next to the hive after it was moved. All that remains to be done is to examine the re-queened colony a week or so later to remove the queen-cage and to make sure that the new queen has been accepted.

Illingworth, L. (1940). A Safe and Simple Method of Requeening a Bad-Tempered Stock. Bee World, 21(1), 2-3.

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