# Requeening above an excluder



## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Lauri Miller mentioned that trick, but it was not using an excluder. 99% of virgin queens could not go through an excluder.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

No need for excluder. Place a 24-48 hour started cell above the broodnest. The bees won't consider it a threat and will draw it out and finish it as they would a graft frame in a queen right colony. The cell will emerge and the virgin takes over. Whether she will kill the established queen imminently is up to the colony. I find many times she will get mated and start laying before the old queen is eliminated.
If you install a capped cell closer to emergence, they will almost always tear it down with in an hour.

6-24










6-29










7-1










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emerged successfully 7-8











Below, left successful emergence, right torn down










Started queen cell is perceived as no threat to established queen


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Unless you use a cell protector
We use them on our mature cells when replacing with cells


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Ian said:


> Unless you use a cell protector
> We use them on our mature cells when replacing with cells


I haven't used cell protectors except for cell transport, but have seen bees uncap a cell as well as dig into the side if they are against it. I also think you have a better chance of the 2 queens coexisting together until the virgin gets mated, possible reducing your chances of ending up with a queenless colony & reducing your slight down time with lack of new brood, if they actually rear the cell within the hive. Going into winter with 2 queen colonies doesn't bother me too much.  

Down side is they don't get a brood break. But if they need to clean up the cells, I break them up into nucs and run a couple virgin queen through them. Later in summer though, options are more limited.

I have consecutive photos of them tearing down a capped cell somewhere. Let me dig them out.


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## Mosherd1 (Apr 17, 2011)

Thank you for the comments, my main reason behind it is to avoid pulling 100-150 lbs of honey off each hive to remove the excluder. But I will do it if I have to, thanks again,
-Dave


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

When I have had spare queen cells and not enough mating nucs I have some times place a frame of brood in the top box placed the top box with a queen cell on top of the inner cover which had the hand hold covered with 1/8" hardware cloth and the notched slot in the opposite direction to the hives main entrance. Most of the time they will raise the queen which I can remove or take the box and make a split. However on a few occasions I have had the cell destroyed I think because I did not leave the top box queenless for long enough.
Johno


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Ya lots of interesting ways to accomplish the task. We have cells ready every Thursdsy. Throughout our yard work we tag poor or failing hives. Drop a mature cell into the nest below the excluder and 10 days later there are likely going and those vigorous new queens catch up. By keeping all the brood activity in the brood area helps keep yard work less confusing for staff (and myself)


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## Charlestonbee (Mar 26, 2015)

Would you be able to transport these 24-48 hour cells an hour drive somehow?


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I've had a hard time getting cells to fit in the JZBZ protectors. But it sounds like you are happy with your results Ian. 

Charles, if I was going to transport I would leave them on the graft frame and do it in a queenless nuc in a screened transport box.
If you just want to transport a few, I'd put them in a roller cage with attending nurse bees and slip a disposable hand warmer with them in an insulated container for the temp control (Depending on the current temps). 
I use these hand warmers all the time with cells in an insulated soft lunch box I carry around with me all day as I collect queens and replace with ripe cells.
Started cells would transport well because they are not as delicate as they are during the mid developmental stage.


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## Charlestonbee (Mar 26, 2015)

Perfect thanks for the help. Would only need to transport ab 20 at a time and I could use either method you describe.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

Requeening with 48 h cells... this looks so easy. I want to try


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Try putting a cell in the top box and make and entrance in the top box. The cell may emerge and mate and lay making a two queen hive? Then you can pinch the lower queen when you remove the honey crop?


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## Bkwoodsbees (Feb 8, 2014)

There was a large commercial outfit , not in US that requeened it's hives by placing capped queen cells up in the honey supers, if I remember correctly. They had a high percentage of success.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Bkwoodsbees said:


> There was a large commercial outfit , not in US that requeened it's hives by placing capped queen cells up in the honey supers, if I remember correctly. They had a high percentage of success.


Yes, I've heard a few people that have had largely successful experience of requeening with a cell placed in the top box, but that was without having queen excluders on the hives.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Requeening a failing hive justifies the risk, but simply dropping cells in all your hives might lead you backwards. Remember those virgins need to mate


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Good point, Ian.
I found out that a strong queen hive will tear down the introduced cap cells or they
will not feed the developing graft cells. Maybe they don't think that they needed another
queen yet. This is the consequences of making the well fed strong queens.


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## Boxelder (Sep 16, 2017)

Reviving this thread to ask - does anyone place an uncapped queen cell above an excluder, with an upper entrance, with the intended result a mated queen in both the top and bottom box? In other words, can you semi-reliably get a virgin to mate in the second story of a queen right hive, as Doolitle described?


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## ffrtsaxk (Jul 17, 2017)

Boxelder said:


> Reviving this thread to ask - does anyone place an uncapped queen cell above an excluder, with an upper entrance, with the intended result a mated queen in both the top and bottom box? In other words, can you semi-reliably get a virgin to mate in the second story of a queen right hive, as Doolitle described?


I tried it last year and got a laying queen in both boxes, but they killed the queen in the top box within a couple of weeks of her starting to lay. From what I've read and seen, it is one of those things than can work but doesn't always work. It's alright to play around with as long as you have a backup plan and aren't relying on it as your only source of queens.


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## Hobo (Mar 4, 2014)

With a QE the bees in the top box are not queenless and will kill a queen or queen cell that you introduce. If you instead use a double screen board (e.g., Snelgrove board) the bees in the two boxes will not have direct contact with one another and the bees in the top box will soon realize they are queenless and should be much more willing to accept a new queen or queen cell.


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## Boxelder (Sep 16, 2017)

ffrtsaxk said:


> I tried it last year and got a laying queen in both boxes, but they killed the queen in the top box within a couple of weeks of her starting to lay. From what I've read and seen, it is one of those things than can work but doesn't always work. It's alright to play around with as long as you have a backup plan and aren't relying on it as your only source of queens.


Thankyou. That was my impression of what might happen from reading Doolittle's book, but it sounded a little unreliable. Any idea what percentage of queen cells makes it into a laying queen? Even if it was only 50%, it would still be worth it, far less expensive than breaking up a production colony into mating nucs....


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## Boxelder (Sep 16, 2017)

I think the idea of this thread is to introduce an UNCAPPED queen cell above the queen excluder, that will then be maintained by the nurse bees rather than destroying it.


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## Nelsonhoneyfarms (May 19, 2019)

Boxelder said:


> I think the idea of this thread is to introduce an UNCAPPED queen cell above the queen excluder, that will then be maintained by the nurse bees rather than destroying it.


I experimented with this last year after a commercial break told me about it. Made sure the top deep and bottom deep had queen cells and propped up the lid so the top queen had an exit and put a QE in between. Came back a few weeks later and had two mated queens fat and laying. Pulled one of them out into a nuc. Worked out well for me. 

Ryan


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## ffrtsaxk (Jul 17, 2017)

Boxelder said:


> Thankyou. That was my impression of what might happen from reading Doolittle's book, but it sounded a little unreliable. Any idea what percentage of queen cells makes it into a laying queen? Even if it was only 50%, it would still be worth it, far less expensive than breaking up a production colony into mating nucs....


I think the percentage of queen cells that make it into a laying queen is going to vary a lot depending on everything else that is going on. Doolittle had tremendous success for a while, then it turned disastrous in bad years. So, I couldn't even guess what it would average out to. In addition to the attempt in a Langstroth last year, I had a queen isolated from supersedure queen cell in my observation hive. It was going well until we had a few days of rain and the foragers couldn't get out. Then, they tore the capped cell down and ate the pupa. So, there are lots of things that can go wrong.


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## GregH (Aug 4, 2016)

I just went into a 5 over 5 today and found 2 capped queen cells in the bottom box and a laying queen in the top box. so I put a queen excluder in between the 2 boxes leaving the cells on bottom. i will come back in 2 weeks and see what has happened. If I have a laying queen in the bottom it will be an easy split to make.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

GregH said:


> I just went into a 5 over 5 today and found 2 capped queen cells in the bottom box and a laying queen in the top box. so I put a queen excluder in between the 2 boxes leaving the cells on bottom. i will come back in 2 weeks and see what has happened. If I have a laying queen in the bottom it will be an easy split to make.


Why not just pull the top box now? some field bees will come back , it has cells, I would think it works better with a queen less hive hatching the cells VRS a queen rite.
Is it a Supersedure? Cuz if they are swarm cells she may hatch and leave, just thinking of all the options. IMO I would remove the old queen, just in case they wish to swarm. If you are going to any way all that differs is the timing.
GG


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## GregH (Aug 4, 2016)

Gray goose: Judging by the way the queen is laying it is going to be a Superseder. I have more grafted queen cells that will be ready this weekend so I am going to go ahead and just break this hive down into 3 splits and give them all a new queen cell and pinch the old queen.


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## Boxelder (Sep 16, 2017)

Gray Goose said:


> Why not just pull the top box now? some field bees will come back , it has cells, I would think it works better with a queen less hive hatching the cells VRS a queen rite.
> Is it a Supersedure? Cuz if they are swarm cells she may hatch and leave, just thinking of all the options. IMO I would remove the old queen, just in case they wish to swarm. If you are going to any way all that differs is the timing.
> GG


To me, the big attraction of mating a virgin in a queenright hive is that it does not unnecessarily parse our resources to the point that we have a lot of weak hives. A mating nuc probably cannot do anything beyond maintain itself - and sometimes struggles to do even that. Those same two frames of bees, if part of a larger hive, can contribute significantly to the strength and resource-gathering ability of the hive.


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## Andhors (Dec 7, 2018)

I had success with using a box above a queen excluder as a cell finisher. I put hair rollers on the finished cells to prevent conflict on emergence.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

Andhors said:


> I had success with using a box above a queen excluder as a cell finisher. I put hair rollers on the finished cells to prevent conflict on emergence.


Andhors, Have you ever actually hatched and mated queen above an excluder over a queen rite colony? Just wondering I want to try it. Upper entrance would be needed.


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## Andhors (Dec 7, 2018)

No. Not mated, just finished QC’s.


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## blamb61 (Apr 24, 2014)

bump, I'm interested in this if anyone has had success with this.


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## AzaleaHill (Mar 11, 2018)

Boxelder said:


> Reviving this thread to ask - does anyone place an uncapped queen cell above an excluder, with an upper entrance, with the intended result a mated queen in both the top and bottom box? In other words, can you semi-reliably get a virgin to mate in the second story of a queen right hive, as Doolitle described?


Boxelder - Yes, see Bob Binnie's video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z62UwOLfdMo&t=15s


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## Boxelder (Sep 16, 2017)

Thankyou AzaleaHill - I actually just watched the video a few weeks ago. But, unless I missed something, the video only described requeening where the supers are separated by a double screen, rather than just a queen excluder.

Or did I miss something? It wouldn't be the first time


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## AzaleaHill (Mar 11, 2018)

Boxelder, Here’s how I understand the method.
1)	start with a double deep colony (bottom box = B1; top box = B2) and a new deep box (w/frames = B3)
2)	Separate the colony and equalize the brood and resources between B1 and B2.
3)	Find the queen and put her in the B1; or if you can’t find the queen, shake ALL the bees from B2 frames into B1.
4)	put a queen excluder on B1, put B2 on the QE and put B3 on B2
5)	wait 24 hours for the bees to equalize between the boxes (the QE keeps the queen in B1)
6)	rebuild the stack with B1 on the bottom, next is B3, then a double screen board, then B2.
7) B1 bees now have a new box to expand into; B2 bees will suddenly realize they are queenless and build a queen cell. Remove B2 to a separate bottom board sometime after 13 days, as appropriate.


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## IBJake (May 15, 2015)

There's a good write up on the commercial forum in the "Running two queen colonies" thread. It's post number 3 by Oldtimer. I'm not sure how to link it so this is the copy. 

One place I worked did this as standard practise it worked very well for both swarm control and requeening.

Hives were wintered in double deeps. In spring before swarming time, all the hives with 2 year old queens (yes in those pre varroa days, queens lived 2 years), the queen was found and put in the bottom box. An excluder was put on top and then a honey super, there was no flow yet the super was just incase things got crowded. A division board was put on top of that and the other brood box put on that with basically a nuc in it and this was given a queen cell.

A few 1 year old queen hives were done also because there would not be 100% mating.

Around a month later the hives would be combined. The top box above the division board now (hopefully) with a laying queen, was taken off. The honey super was taken off and the excluder taken off. So the hive was now down to the bottom box with the old queen. 6 Sheets of newspaper were put on and then the excluder. Then the top box with the new queen and a choc was put in each front corner on the excluder to raise the second box to make a second entrance. This stopped the nuc suffocating prior to the paper getting chewed out plus these hives later got strong and needed that extra entrance. 2 sheets of paper were put on the second box plus another excluder and the honey box on top of that.

So the configuration from the bottom, was bottom box with old queen, excluder, second box with new queen, excluder, honey super.

After this we did not open the brood nest again that season, just more supers were added as needed.

In fall, honey supers were removed, then the hives wintered down, which involved pulling the excluders and feeding hives that needed it to get required amount of feed for winter. Come spring, the old queen would be gone just the young one was left.

At the time we gave the queen cells, the hive mats were marked with the strain of the queen and the date. So we could know what queen was in each hive by looking at the mat.

In that area, there was a sharp flow lasting roughly 2 1/2 months. Once this flow started the bees lost all desire to swarm and focussed on honey collection. So the 2 queening was timed so that leading into swarming time, the hives were split with the unit & cell put on top. This effectively stopped the hive swarming. Then the hives were recombined a few weeks before the flow would start. They just had time to sort themselves out & build a very strong hive in time for the flow to start. So we achieved requeening, a strong hive just in time for the flow, and swarm control.

The method was perfectly suited for that area, and is still done by some beekeepers in that area. (Canterbury plains, New Zealand).

However when I moved North around 600 miles closer to the equator, no beekeepers used 2 queening, and I found out why when I tried it. Here winters were warm and the bees came out strong and wanting to swarm. There was some kind of flow for around 7 or more months so the seasons were not well defined. Bees happy to swarm anytime, flow or not. So when I tried 2 queening all I got was super strong hives that were impossible to prevent from swarming.

So the method can work well in some areas, poorly in others. It is a prime example of how locality can affect management methods, what is superb in one area is lousy in another.


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