# They Killed Their Queen.



## A.B. (Sep 15, 2016)

I had my first queening failure yesterday, I made up a nuc last friday and moved it to my fathers house 15 minutes drive away and placed in the queen cage. 
I checked them again the following Wednesday, Yesterday and they hadn't quite eaten through the candy yet, so I released her, as I had done before and they killed her immediately!! inch: they weren't crowding the cage or acting aggressive so I thought it was safe.
My guess is i should have left them queenless for longer?
How would you guys go about recombining this nuc to the donor hive?
any Ideas would be greatly appreciated.


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## wvbeeguy (Feb 20, 2011)

Typically you leave the nuc queenless for 4 hours so that bees know they need a queen. Also dont have eggs and young larvae in your nuc, they may try to raise their own instead of accepting yours. if you want to combine back shouldnt be a problem, if you want,place a single layer of newspaper between boxes and they will reunite without problem.


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## A.B. (Sep 15, 2016)

wvbeeguy said:


> Typically you leave the nuc queenless for 4 hours so that bees know they need a queen. Also dont have eggs and young larvae in your nuc, they may try to raise their own instead of accepting yours. if you want to combine back shouldnt be a problem, if you want,place a single layer of newspaper between boxes and they will reunite without problem.


Thanks mate, yes they only had about 2 hours before I put in the queen cage, lesson learned! I may do the newspaper thing so they don't kill their original queen also?


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Are the queens and the bees of the same race?
Look that nuc over good, there may be a queen in it already. Bees know they are queenless within minutes. I quite frequently split off a nuc, and place a caged queen in within minutes. If the nuc is queenless it is the pheromones of the caged queen that dominate the nuc and she is accepted. The only time I have had a caged queen killed when released is when there is another queen present. Or when trying to introduce a queen of different race. Had you not released her then she would have been killed when the candy plug was gone and you would not have known. If there is a queen within the hive she would have continued and you would have though you had a successful introduction. I suspect such things happen more often than many realize.
Check that hive good there is a chance that it has a queen. Check the parent hive too to be sure it has a queen. Then go from there.


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## A.B. (Sep 15, 2016)

Tenbears said:


> Are the queens and the bees of the same race?
> Look that nuc over good, there may be a queen in it already. Bees know they are queenless within minutes. I quite frequently split off a nuc, and place a caged queen in within minutes. If the nuc is queenless it is the pheromones of the caged queen that dominate the nuc and she is accepted. The only time I have had a caged queen killed when released is when there is another queen present. Or when trying to introduce a queen of different race. Had you not released her then she would have been killed when the candy plug was gone and you would not have known. If there is a queen within the hive she would have continued and you would have though you had a successful introduction. I suspect such things happen more often than many realize.
> Check that hive good there is a chance that it has a queen. Check the parent hive too to be sure it has a queen. Then go from there.


Thanks Tenbears.
I was very careful to remove the queen before the split, I put her in a queen clip on a super with bees separate from the brood. I also thought to check the nuc after they killed her as I thought the same as you, but could find no queen.
The queen was a golden Italian but the bees were regular Italians or a hybrid ( not 100% sure) although they did accept the same queens last year


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I've learned my lesson, let them release her, even if they look accepting, all the bees in the hive might not think so. Also, I've recently just introduced queencages as I pull the nuc, it helps keep any queencell building down which sometimes inhibits acceptance.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

JRG13 said:


> Also, I've recently just introduced queencages as I pull the nuc.


I've been 100% doing that this year. So much easier than playing the queen cell cutting game. Cage old queen press new queen's cage in.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

After trying so many queen introduction method over the years, I like to take an empty old comb frame to turn it into a 
queen introduction cage. This is call a frame introduction cage. After the queen is inside the cage put in a
few young nurse bees with her. The young nurse bees will instantly feed and
groom the new queen as they are too young for any killing power. Then you don't have to
worry about balling or the delay in laying since there are many open cells for her to lay. After
1 week of laying then you can open the cage entrance a little to allow some
bees to go in. Majority of these are the young nurse bees caring for the newly hatched larvae. After 2 weeks you can put a stick
at the bottom of the cage to create a small opening for the queen to go out. Using this method will have 100%
acceptance since bees prefer a laying queen. It doesn't matter what type of bees you mix with because
all the open broods are cap by now. Though I will check one more time for any cap queen cells just to be sure.
The queen less wait time is only 6 hours with this method although I don't think there should be any waiting.

Frame introduction cage:


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## DavidZ (Apr 9, 2016)

Vanderpool method is the best.

plus you need to leave your nuc queenless for 24hrs not 4hrs


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## A.B. (Sep 15, 2016)

Thanks Guys, Lots of good info there to work with.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

DavidZ said:


> Vanderpool method is the best.
> 
> plus you need to leave your nuc queenless for 24hrs not 4hrs


I leave them queenless about four seconds. Doesn't seem to be an issue.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

jwcarlson said:


> I leave them queenless about four seconds. Doesn't seem to be an issue.


Ditto. Best with no attendants.


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