# Requeening honey bee colonies without dequeening



## Eduardo Gomes

It's an early study that deserved my attention. There is no match in advanced title search. I believe it has interest to some of us.


REQUEENING HONEY BEE COLONIES WITHOUT DEQUEENING
By I. W. FORSTER* (Received 15 October 1971)

ABSTRACT
_Two-storeyed colonies can be successfully requeened by raising
the original queen and the brood nest above a division board, rearing a young queen from an introduced cell in the bottom storey, and then reuniting both storeys when most advantageous. There is no need to
find queens, and colony manipulation is reduced to a minimum._ 

source: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00288233.1972.10421270?needAccess=true


----------



## 1102009

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/benhardenmethod.html


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

Sibylle the procedure is different. If you do not know the article I advise you to read it. You will not give your time for lost. It is a very short article.


----------



## Phoebee

I'm not sure how that relieves one of finding the original queen. You need to know the box she is in.

I rather like the artificial swarm idea. Move the old queen to a nuc with sufficient stores, nurses, and brood to get a fresh start. Let the old hive raise a queen. If anything goes wrong, you can recombine, or donate brood from the nuc. If you decide to pinch the old queen later, the nuc can be recombined with the original.


----------



## 1102009

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Sibylle the procedure is different. If you do not know the article I advise you to read it. You will not give your time for lost. It is a very short article.


Sorry.


----------



## BadBeeKeeper

I combined two queenright colonies this Fall. Repeated attempts to locate an older queen (to remove her) failed over several days during bad weather and I ultimately gave up. The colonies were initially separated by an inner cover with the center hole open, and a sheet of newspaper over that. After a number of days the inner cover was removed from the middle of the stack (the newspaper had been chewed through).

I'll see what's what come Spring. I really didn't have much choice as it was so late in the season and better weather was not to be expected. Unfortunately, neither queen was marked, so unless there are two queens in there when I inspect in the Spring, it isn't likely that I'll know which survived.


----------



## johno

Hi Eduardo, I cannot see the point of leaving the older queen to be destroyed. I re queen my hives every spring with my own queen cells as part of my swarm prevention practice, when the spring weather allows. The 2nd season queen with a frame of capped brood becomes a nuc to be sold later. Of course the colony has to be watched for the cell to emerge and eventually for the new queen to start laying.
Johno


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

Hi johno, In my case I may have to eliminate some old queens for the first time, because I do not wish to duplicate my number of hives. On the other hand I am not sure that in my country I can sell in a few months 600 nucs. Purchasing power here is lower than in the US and many beekeepers recover their winter losses by spliting their hives or picking up swarms.


----------



## RayMarler

I have read in many different sources that you can just place a ready to emerge queen cell in the top of the top honey stores box. The cell will emerge and the virgin will kill the old queen most of the time, as a superceder replacement. There are a couple people here in the forms that do this, I can't recall just who at the moment though.

The ready to emerge cell is to be placed in the top honey storage area to give her some separation from the brood nest area which is below. A virgin queen is programmed to search out and kill other queens, and the old queen is slower as she is full off eggs and actively laying. I have read that this works in a high percentage of the colonies it is done on, and seems much easier than what is described in the link in the first post above.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

RayMarler said:


> I have read in many different sources that you can just place a ready to emerge queen cell in the top of the top honey stores box.


Yes Ray, I also think some of us do it with success.

However if I find it difficult to sell the 600 nucs, I intend to sell about half. As I am not sure how many, I believe I.W. Forster's proposal fits well with this level of uncertainty. Those who come to sell I'll pass them to another box. Those who I do not sell I'll put out the divider board and let nature take its course.

About the technique you refer Szabo wrote this paper: 
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.1982.11100543?src=recsys

One question: in Portugal, beekeepers value more nucleus with a new queen compared to a nucleus with a one-year-old queen. I have the impression that in the USA it is the opposite, that you value a queen who has overwinter well. Is it correct?


----------



## stan.vick

RayMarler said:


> I have read in many different sources that you can just place a ready to emerge queen cell in the top of the top honey stores box. The cell will emerge and the virgin will kill the old queen most of the time, as a superceder replacement. There are a couple people here in the forms that do this, I can't recall just who at the moment though.
> 
> The ready to emerge cell is to be placed in the top honey storage area to give her some separation from the brood nest area which is below. A virgin queen is programmed to search out and kill other queens, and the old queen is slower as she is full off eggs and actively laying. I have read that this works in a high percentage of the colonies it is done on, and seems much easier than what is described in the link in the first post above.


I re-queen that way except I use a queen excluder under the queen cell. I just lift the top box, put on the excluder, pop in the frame that has a couple of queen cells on it, place the cover on, then remove the queen excluder in a couple of weeks. The virgin queen will go through the excluder prior to being mated and will kill the old queen, then leave for her mating flight. A very easy and reliable way to re-queen.


----------



## billabell

stan.vick,
I am curious - why do the bees who have the old queen that is still laying not defend her and kill the new queen. I once saw bees ball a young queen that returned from her mating flight and land on the wrong landing board. I was suprised how quickly they attacked her and she didn't even get in the hive.


----------



## stan.vick

billabell said:


> stan.vick,
> I am curious - why do the bees who have the old queen that is still laying not defend her and kill the new queen. I once saw bees ball a young queen that returned from her mating flight and land on the wrong landing board. I was suprised how quickly they attacked her and she didn't even get in the hive.


I think it is the lack of or weak queen pheromones of an unmated queen, I have taken a newly emerged queen and placed her at the entrance of a hive and watched her march into the hive unchallenged while there were plenty of guard bees on duty, I did this out of curiosity because I had the same questions that you have. I have used the method many times, so it's not just a fluke, it works time after time.


----------



## billabell

Thank you. That is something I did not think of weak queen essence.


----------



## RayMarler

Eduardo Gomes said:


> One question: in Portugal, beekeepers value more nucleus with a new queen compared to a nucleus with a one-year-old queen. I have the impression that in the USA it is the opposite, that you value a queen who has overwinter well. Is it correct?


I think it depends on the beekeeper you ask. Some want a nuc with queen as early in the season as they can possibly get, and that means an over wintered queen in nuc, which would be available before any spring mated queens. This factor may also play into the location of where the beekeeper is keeping bees. In the far north or north-east where the season starts later, or in the south where the season starts earlier.

Some beekeepers say an over wintered queen that was mated late summer of the year before and over wintered, is a better chance of being a good queen than a recently mated early spring queen. I myself am undecided in this, as there are so many variables in bees, and I've seen both good and not as good queens from the year before, as well as the current year spring queens.


----------



## beepro

The newly mated young after the solstice queen that can overwintered will
withstand the arctic chills here better. Under our normal environment, they can
multiply quickly on hive expansion days. Remember that she is still a 2-3 months young queen but
overwintered nevertheless. So she can carry the colony through. Without these young queens my
mite bomb nuc manipulation cannot be done here. She can often outlay the old 2nd year queen and beat the mites population too. That's why if I can to overwinter as many of these late mated queens as possible. Since she's in the nuc stage, the focus will be on hive expansion and not on swarming impulse on an early Spring flow. On purpose, 3 years in the testing mated and emerged in a hive mite infested level nuc hive. I'm almost there with all the equipment preparation for another round this Spring.


----------



## DerTiefster

I confess to not having read the paper, but Eduardo's description seems to be the same words which would be applied to a Snelgrove board vertical split of a colony. Is it somehow different?

Michael


----------



## SWM

I know several beekeepers who have been promoting this method of re-queening in recent years. When I ask about success rate they don't really know; there is just the assumption that the young virgin destroys the old queen. The only way to know for sure is if the old queen is marked. If you are going to follow-up by locating the surviving queen then you might as well find the old queen to begin with and destroy her before inserting the cell to eliminate all doubt. There has been recent discussion about this method within another group and it appears, when a study was actually done, that the success rates are not nearly so good as many think.

http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1705&L=BEE-L&P=71


----------



## billabell

I am not advocating this method although I may try it modified.
SWM said: "The only way to know for sure is if the old queen is marked. If you are going to follow-up by locating the surviving queen then you might as well find the old queen to begin with and destroy her before inserting the cell to eliminate all doubt."
No, if the old queen is unmarked you just mark the new queen and then you know for sure. Marking is the only way I have of finding queens at my age unless I am lucky that day, and then I have to hope that she doesn't get superseded. 
The modification, and it is not really a modification, is just to put the new queen (marked) in a nuc with nurse bees shaken from the hive you are trying to requeen (if possible) and then when she is established and laying do a newspaper combine with the nuc on top. This is not my idea I think others have been doing this with pretty good success just from threads I have read.
This is really stan.vick's method above with the queen cells and an excluder which seems pretty easy and fits well with OTS. Using a cell 
I am going to have to find her after emergence and mark her and of course provide an upper entrance for mating probably using a double screen board.


----------



## SWM

Okay, billabell, I missed the part about the excluder under the cell. If you decide to use this method I would be interested in your results.

Best Wishes...


----------



## aunt betty

beepro said:


> The newly mated young after the solstice queen that can overwintered will
> withstand the arctic chills here better. Under our normal environment, they can
> multiply quickly on hive expansion days. Remember that she is still a 2-3 months young queen but
> overwintered nevertheless. So she can carry the colony through. Without these young queens my
> mite bomb nuc manipulation cannot be done here. She can often outlay the old 2nd year queen and beat the mites population too. That's why if I can to overwinter as many of these late mated queens as possible. Since she's in the nuc stage, the focus will be on hive expansion and not on swarming impulse on an early Spring flow. On purpose, 3 years in the testing mated and emerged in a hive mite infested level nuc hive. I'm almost there with all the equipment preparation for another round this Spring.


Yes. Yet another reason to do OTS on June 20. 
I'll be putting pink dots on the 2017 post solstice queens. Yellow on the pre-solstice. 
In fact I'm trying to come up with a system to mark my queens where I can tell what year and whether it's pre or post solstice just by color. Then compare which has better winter survival rate.
I wonder if a post-soltice queen could make it thru two Illinois winters. So far not many have made it that long in my yards.


----------



## SWM

I admire Mel's commitment to his OTS system, but is there any scientific research to confirm that queens raised after the summer solstice are more apt to survive the winter and be better queens the following spring?


----------



## dlbrightjr

SWM said:


> I admire Mel's commitment to his OTS system, but is there any scientific research to confirm that queens raised after the summer solstice are more apt to survive the winter and be better queens the following spring?


I don't know about that; the big claim I've seen is that they lay like a spring queen. That was true of the queens I bought last August. I guess that could help them survive the winter.


----------



## DerTiefster

A common enough description of "science": observation by the "generally respectable," followed by interpretation by the "appropriately certified." Someone without certification, but who becomes respectable enough to be given a public hearing, is commonly awarded some honorary degree or other, thereby becoming certified.

One only has to read the reports provided by adequately careful observers, and make one's informed interpretation of these observations to be doing what falls under my definition of "science." Disselkoen has an apparent conflict of interest. But that doesn't mean his information is less correct. It just means he might not be fully objective. Or he might be. "Apparent" does not mean "actual." Listen, then make your decision. "Science" brought you "all cholesterol plugs your arteries.... Oh, wait.... maybe not. Oh. There are _two_ kinds of that stuff. But coconut oil is ba.... oh. wait.... But you don't really want to be eating fat in your diet, anyway... Oh...." Listen, think, then decide. You, too, can do "science."


----------



## beepro

I'm part science and part observation with my little bee experiment through out the years. Third year into the
testing and still have not learn them all yet. One can only be certain by testing a small batch to see the yearly 
results. The reason I still have bees to keep and expand on is that mainly 95% of my hives are from the overwintered
nucs with a late after the solstice queen that I hand selected coming from good genetic background. They are the local
mated daughter queens. The obsolete ones will be weeded out during the qualifying and selection process made during the
winter time as we have mild winter here. Combine Mike Palmer's nuc and Mel's (late) solstice queen with my
mite bee bomb brood removal (winter) nuc management method = winter survival bees. The proof is in the box. A well fed young strong queen coming from good genetics will make the difference between winter survival or a hive crash. Many will not select their queens for winter survival, I do. So select them carefully!


Young queen on Spring expansion is amazing:


----------



## billabell

DerTiefster said:


> A common enough description of "science": observation by the "generally respectable," followed by interpretation by the "appropriately certified." Someone without certification, but who becomes respectable enough to be given a public hearing, is commonly awarded some honorary degree or other, thereby becoming certified.
> 
> One only has to read the reports provided by adequately careful observers, and make one's informed interpretation of these observations to be doing what falls under my definition of "science." Disselkoen has an apparent conflict of interest. But that doesn't mean his information is less correct. It just means he might not be fully objective. Or he might be. "Apparent" does not mean "actual." Listen, then make your decision. "Science" brought you "all cholesterol plugs your arteries.... Oh, wait.... maybe not. Oh. There are _two_ kinds of that stuff. But coconut oil is ba.... oh. wait.... But you don't really want to be eating fat in your diet, anyway... Oh...." Listen, think, then decide. You, too, can do "science."


1491: the science is settled the earth is flat
1492: oops!!
:lookout:


----------



## SWM

DerTiefster said:


> A common enough description of "science": observation by the "generally respectable," followed by interpretation by the "appropriately certified." Someone without certification, but who becomes respectable enough to be given a public hearing, is commonly awarded some honorary degree or other, thereby becoming certified.
> 
> One only has to read the reports provided by adequately careful observers, and make one's informed interpretation of these observations to be doing what falls under my definition of "science." Disselkoen has an apparent conflict of interest. But that doesn't mean his information is less correct. It just means he might not be fully objective. Or he might be. "Apparent" does not mean "actual." Listen, then make your decision. "Science" brought you "all cholesterol plugs your arteries.... Oh, wait.... maybe not. Oh. There are _two_ kinds of that stuff. But coconut oil is ba.... oh. wait.... But you don't really want to be eating fat in your diet, anyway... Oh...." Listen, think, then decide. You, too, can do "science."


Well, I can see that I pushed your buttons by using the term "scientific research". Yes, my own observations are weighted much more heavily as well, so we agree on that. To be clear, I'm not doubting the premise that queens raised after the summer solstice will do better the following year. I'm just trying to understand it at a deeper level for my own curiosity. So I'll rephrase the question: What is it about a queen that emerges on June 25th that makes her better equipped to lead a colony the following year than a queen that emerges 10 days earlier on June 15th, before the summer solstice? If you don't know the answer, that's okay because I don't know it either...but 
I'm searching for it.


----------



## dlbrightjr

Is it possible it is not a difference in the queens as much as a difference in the number of winter bees they layed in the fall? Once again, I have seen it suggested several times that a queen hatched after the summer solstice will lay like a queen who is in the spring build up. This late brood break and rapid fall build up could help the hives control mites. It could give the hive more and healthier winter bees. This could make it appear that the queen born after the summer solstice is much better than the spring queen that has reduced brood rearing in the fall, wintered with less and less healthy bees due to varroa. Or worse yet the queen that did not reduce brood rearing, but, protected tons of mites in her brood right up until winter. No?


----------



## DerTiefster

SWM: Well, yes (as he lifts his head sheepishly to reply), I do respond on some topics in a rantish fashion. Michael Faraday was not a college-schooled, certificated person, but a well-reasoned, astute observer. While having the first half of that, I occasionally muster the skill to be the second. I make mistakes, too. But no one should take the word of a certificated person when it runs counter to his own eyes. Yes, your eyes may fool you, but then you're not observing carefully enough. We should just keep at it and remember our limitations.

Seems we are in basic agreement. Look at the development history of Walt Wright's "Nectar Management" for some hints he provides on this topic of post-solstice queens. Walt's observations included that his queens laid like anything into the open brood space he provided through his checkerboarding, in his time and place, with his bees. Then they were superseded for reasons he didn't determine. His observation was that it routinely happened. Some others who corresponded with him did not see the same things with their bees, at least not as a uniform pattern. But Walt's observations dovetail with Disselkoen's observations about post-solstice queens being a Good Thing To Overwinter. Disselkoen makes what appear to be speculative words about day-length sensitivity, concerning the validity of which I have no idea whatsoever. But both of these astute observers found that later-summer queens were beneficial. Neither concluded confidently why this should be so.

Disselkoen credits Miller with noting and publishing the tendency of worker bees to turn cut cells into queens at the bottom of chevron-trimmed comb. Miller, in Disselkoen's view, didn't recognize that simply turning a cell into a downward facing cup seemed to be the crucial trigger. Hopkins found this in his "turn comb horizontal" method of making queen cells, but Disselkoen uses both in a simple fashion to guide and suggest to the bees where to place queen cells. The bees don't always listen, but there is a bias in their response.

It would be useful to understand why post solstice queens did well in these two areas. I find it uncompelling that the bees simply out-reproduce the mites. There is always a population reduction in bees, and the mites don't automatically die off as the bee population decreases. Now, if the queen rears the winter bee population with fewer brood cycles, that also cuts off some of the growth cycles of the mites, and could reduce the mite infestation proportion. But (as you said of yourself) I don't know.


----------



## AR Beekeeper

There is no difference between the queens you describe if they are raised in my area. What affects a queen's ability to lay eggs is the number of eggs she has available to lay, the amount of sperm she has stored to fertilize them, and the number of eggs she has been required to lay to build a worker population to collect the spring nectar flow.

A May queen will do just as well laying the fall/winter bees as one raised after June 21, if she is in a healthy, well fed colony. She has not been stressed by having to lay large numbers of eggs for the spring buildup. The winter adult bee population is the foundation for the buildup the following spring, and many beekeepers fail to properly manage the colony to encourage the bees fall buildup. When the colony fails overwinter it is blamed on an "old" queen dying, or excessive moisture.

The solstice is just another day, ignore the "gimics" and raise well nourished virgins from good stock, and furnish healthy drones for her to mate with. Have new queens in all of your colonies by the middle of July and watch your winter survival rate climb.


----------



## SWM

Thanks, DerTiefster, for your response and I think we are in a same place. Both passionate about honey bees and why they do what they do. 
The learning experience about bees has kept me fascinated with them for 40+ years and those who follow us will be doing the same thing
after we are gone.


----------



## dlbrightjr

AR Beekeeper said:


> There is no difference between the queens you describe if they are raised in my area. What affects a queen's ability to lay eggs is the number of eggs she has available to lay, the amount of sperm she has stored to fertilize them, and the number of eggs she has been required to lay to build a worker population to collect the spring nectar flow.
> 
> A May queen will do just as well laying the fall/winter bees as one raised after June 21, if she is in a healthy, well fed colony. She has not been stressed by having to lay large numbers of eggs for the spring buildup. The winter adult bee population is the foundation for the buildup the following spring, and many beekeepers fail to properly manage the colony to encourage the bees fall buildup. When the colony fails overwinter it is blamed on an "old" queen dying, or excessive moisture.
> 
> The solstice is just another day, ignore the "gimics" and raise well nourished virgins from good stock, and furnish healthy drones for her to mate with. Have new queens in all of your colonies by the middle of July and watch your winter survival rate climb.


Just so I understand correctly. At the top your saying A May queen will do just as well as a queen raised after June 21. At the bottom your saying have new queens by the middle of July and watch your winter survival rate climb. Are you saying requeen at any time between spring and the middle of July and it will make no difference? Survival will increase due to a queen hatched in that period (spring thru the middle of July)?


----------



## DerTiefster

It is quite possible that Disselkoen's attribution of a day-length effect is only a guess. Motivated by post-spring queen survival, but no mechanism was suggested and it's hard to test out such a link. It is, however, a plausible link. Lots of things have day-length dependencies. I don't know that bees do, though. Tropical areas show little variation in day length. Bees can operate there year-round. Some places elsewhere, like protected coastal areas, have nearly year-round bee weather _and_ a day-length variation. Testing for such a link in those places might be fun.


----------



## billabell

This thread needs to be re-titled. 

I agree with AR Beekeeper. :thumbsup:
I would call your attention to this blog post by a knowledgeable beekeeper. https://honeybeesuite.com/what-are-winter-bees-and-what-do-they-do/ 
I think Mel's methods based upon his studies of the leading beekeepers writings from the past from a practical view are spot on. He may not articulate them in "science speak" but his results will speak for themselves. 
The recent studies showing that our pollen in some ways is deficient is also a concern and caused me for the first time to open feed a pollen sub/supp this past fall and the bees took it like there was no tomorrow resulting, in part, in an explosion of bees this spring.


----------



## BadBeeKeeper

AR Beekeeper said:


> The solstice is just another day, ignore the "gimics" and raise well nourished virgins from good stock, and furnish healthy drones for her to mate with. Have new queens in all of your colonies by the middle of July and watch your winter survival rate climb.


I have generally been instructed that a young queen, a year or less old (and certainly less than two years old) performs better than an older queen that is two or more years old, and I can see that this idea may have some merit.

But I see no merit or logic in insisting that queens produced before or after a sharp dividing line such as a 'solstice' will have any differences in performance that cannot be more accurately attributable to other factors. This appears to me to be little more than an 'old wives tale' generated by observer bias- "This queen is doing very well. Oh, yeah, she was hatched after the solstice, that must be the reason." Post hoc ergo propter hoc.


----------



## dlbrightjr

I don't know if it does or doesn't matter, but, it is not just a random date. It signifies a change in day length which could have an affect on behavior.


----------



## minz

OK, wow correct me if I am wrong after reading the two papers (Ed’s and SiWolKe:
I do not have to make a hive queenless to raise 20 cells, just place the cells above an excluder
I do not have to make up mating nucs, just place cells in a deep between boxes (method B, Below seemed to be preferred).
I could run two queen colonies through our flow (nothing blooms here after blackberry in June), newspaper the two half’s or simply remove the old queen.
Debate is out on the solstice, but again we hit a dearth at that date so raising queens after that date may have advantages for overwintering (Dr. Dewey Caron says using left over field bees)


----------



## aunt betty

dlbrightjr said:


> I don't know if it does or doesn't matter, but, it is not just a random date. It signifies a change in day length which could have an affect on behavior.


Zactly my thoughts. June 20 is the longest day of the year. After that every day is shorter. You don't notice it for a while but them bugs do. They've got atomic clocks and the finest GPS units nature can produce. They find their way back to a tiny little hole in a forest of trees.


----------



## billabell

aunt betty: Yes they are amazing little creatures and that is why we are all so taken with them and trying to learn everything we can about them.


----------



## AR Beekeeper

If the length of the daylight period has an affect on a queen emerged on June 21, why would it not have the same affect one emerged on June 1?


----------



## dlbrightjr

The one that emerged on June 1st into a world where the days were getting longer. The queen after June 21 would emerge into a world where the days were getting shorter and would not experience that change. Honestly I suspect a newly hatched queen lays like a "spring queen" and the summer solstice is a convenient point to reference when requeening in the summer. No?


----------



## billabell

dlbrightjr said:


> The one that emerged on June 1st into a world where the days were getting longer. The queen after June 21 would emerge into a world where the days were getting shorter and would not experience that change. Honestly I suspect a newly hatched queen lays like a "spring queen" and the summer solstice is a convenient point to reference when requeening in the summer. No?


Yes. We also have to remember location, location, location.


----------



## beepro

We are talking about the age of the queen with her laying ability. Whether or not she is a before or after June queen is still a young queen. Let's say you have a summer dearth coming after May then raising these queens may not be properly fed. This will have an affect on how the hive overwintered. Yes, location also take into consideration here and so is the specie of bees you keep. The early October raised queens only had a few short months to pack in the hive resources before the cold winter sets in. They behaved just like a Spring hive trying to expand but with the big fat winter bees. Along with the hive population growth so are the mites (if you don't clean out the mites) that will have a big impact on how the hive survive this winter. Somehow if you can removed the mites off the colony then it will be a normal winter bees build up. Without the mites to bother them all colonies survived this past winter. That is why I have concluded that a queen raised after the solstice here can carry the hive overwinter into next Spring. This is my 3rd year into raising the summer and late Autumn queens.


----------



## Michael Palmer

AR Beekeeper said:


> A May queen will do just as well laying the fall/winter bees as one raised after June 21, if she is in a healthy, well fed colony.
> 
> The solstice is just another day, ignore the "gimics" and raise well nourished virgins from good stock, and furnish healthy drones for her to mate with.


I wonder where this idea of solstice and queens comes from. Is there a paper somewhere, or did someone dream this up to fit their dogmatic approach to beekeeping. I disagree with the whole idea.


----------



## JohnSchwartz

Michael, G.M. Doolittle observed this and references it in his book(s). Mel Disselkoen from Michigan is a proponent and teaches such in his material. Doolittle was not a "gimic" kind of guy in my estimation.


----------



## Michael Palmer

My queens are mated from about 3 weeks before the solstice to a month after. I see no difference in them. Not in pattern, ability to winter, or longevity.


----------



## aunt betty

Where I get it from is a guy named Miller. 
He muttered something about CC Miller the day he was telling me all about the post-solstice thing.
Guess I messed up by believing him. Turns out that all the people in the club I'm in don't really know anything at all including myself. 
Am pretty certain that bees buzz but not so sure.


----------



## AR Beekeeper

JohnSchwartz; Could you tell me which of Doolittle's books you found his references to solstice queens? I have been searching the ones I have and can't find anything about queens other than they should be raised after the warm up in spring, the time of the year when bees would be getting ready to swarm.


----------



## beepro

After the solstice or not we all know that a young queen will out produce an older queen. A well fed young
queen mated late Autumn will overwinter better. I'm not saying that an older queen cannot. Just that a young queen 
can produce lots of broods during the Spring time and less likely to swarm in her first season coming out of winter. With a 
young queen and swarm management I've never had a swarm yet. Production hive in 3 deep full of bees and never swarm at all.
Thanks to the young queens made late in the season that have no intention of swarming in their first year. I'm combining Palmer's nuc
method and Mel's late solstice queen method. Once you understand both method they are a right fit in our bee environment here.


----------



## Swarmhunter

Mel Dissoelkoen's OTS mehtods use the after the summer solstice queen rearing as part of his beekeeping practices


----------



## blamb61

RayMarler said:


> I have read in many different sources that you can just place a ready to emerge queen cell in the top of the top honey stores box. The cell will emerge and the virgin will kill the old queen most of the time, as a superceder replacement. There are a couple people here in the forms that do this, I can't recall just who at the moment though.
> 
> The ready to emerge cell is to be placed in the top honey storage area to give her some separation from the brood nest area which is below. A virgin queen is programmed to search out and kill other queens, and the old queen is slower as she is full off eggs and actively laying. I have read that this works in a high percentage of the colonies it is done on, and seems much easier than what is described in the link in the first post above.



Why wouldn't the old queen swarm and leave if there is a new queen going to be hatched?


----------



## Hunajavelho

blamb61 said:


> Why wouldn't the old queen swarm and leave if there is a new queen going to be hatched?


you do not do this to a hive in swarming fever.


----------

