# Requeening for brood break questions



## talkingamoeba (Feb 15, 2008)

Hello, I have grafted and reared queens to make my own increase splits in the Spring for several years. I would now like to rear some to re-queen to cause brood-break as well as perhaps have my colonies a little less swarm-prone next Spring. When can I introduce a queen cell to these colonies to get that effect and will there be an effect on how much goldenrod honey they can make during Aug-Sep?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

The brood break has to last at least 3 weeks which means letting each colony raise a queen vs providing a cell. It will be very hard to meet all your constraints while maximizing honey from the fall flow. I would try to time it so the queens emerge about July 16th to 20th. This will time the resulting shortage of foragers to early August and giving the maximum number of foragers all of September.


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## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

This brood break thing always puzzled me. Even if you make the bees raise their own queen, doesnt actual window is only a week or so where no capped brood is present ? Is that small window of no capped brood enough to knock mites down on its own ? If so, why is that ? Do mites lose reproductive capabilities if they dont enter brood within certain window of time in their life ? Or do you need to augment this break with bees that can clean themselves off the mites ?


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

The theory is that the mites are so starved for fresh, tasty pupae to predate that lots of them crowd into the first round of cells - too many per cell which causes them to die from overcrowding (to say nothing of the poor little pupa.)

But the trick/technique doesn't work unless there really has been a pause, when there is no capped brood at all.

An alternate use of the brood break technique would be a very precisely timed application of a single dose of OAV during the period after the new queen is laying, but before a single cell is capped. During this period all of the mites in the hive are in the phoretic state and so vulnerable to OAV. OAV cannot penetrate cappings, so any that get covered by wax are safe.

While I think brood breaks can be useful, and they certainly can interrupt the mite's build-up curve, I don't bet my hives' lives on that alone. I test frequently and treat, as needed, to make sure my winter bees are raised in a healthy hive.

I'm not sure how brood breaks would have effect on swarming behavior in the spring, except possibly because of having a young(er) queen. Though I've had queens raised in Aug. get the swarm-itch the following May, so I'm not too confident about that either.

Enj.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

in areas that experience a protracted summer dearth as we do here brood rearing can significantly curtailed for a couple of months. alcohol washes in late summer reveal fairly high counts of phoretic mites but they don't seem to have much impact on the late season rearing of overwintering bees. it could be that we have the less virulent strains of viruses prevailing here.


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## talkingamoeba (Feb 15, 2008)

enjambres said:


> The theory is that the mites are so starved for fresh, tasty pupae to predate that lots of them crowd into the first round of cells - too many per cell which causes them to die from overcrowding (to say nothing of the poor little pupa.)
> 
> But the trick/technique doesn't work unless there really has been a pause, when there is no capped brood at all.
> 
> ...



I was going with the younger queen, less swarm prone theory. Most of the colonies I start as NUCs w/ a queen cell tend to not be interested in swarming the next Spring.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

I've had new queens (raised the previous year) get swarmy and old queens (more than two years old) show no signs of swarming. 

I don't find queen age an infallible predictor, and all of my colonies that come out of winter get the same anti-swarm manipulations and close watching until they settle down for year and start drawing white wax like crazy. Then I know that as long as I keep giving 'em more frames to work, they will be sticking around. (And we can be friends again, as the swarm really taxes our "relationship", because I am all up in their business from early April until June.)

Enj.


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## talkingamoeba (Feb 15, 2008)

enjambres said:


> I've had new queens (raised the previous year) get swarmy and old queens (more than two years old) show no signs of swarming.
> 
> I don't find queen age an infallible predictor, and all of my colonies that come out of winter get the same anti-swarm manipulations and close watching until they settle down for year and start drawing white wax like crazy. Then I know that as long as I keep giving 'em more frames to work, they will be sticking around. (And we can be friends again, as the swarm really taxes our "relationship", because I am all up in their business from early April until June.)
> 
> Enj.



I swap the box positions in the Spring, as early as I can, and look for queen cells every 10 days for way too long. Mine are intentional mongrels made up from stock collected as swarms from a colony that has existed in my house wall for 14 years (untreated obviously), descendants of some Russians and some Carniolans I got as NUCs a decade ago, and descendants of queens I got from Joe Latshaw a number of years ago after sending him drones, from a colony that was a swarm of the house wall bees, for his breeding project. The point of my long-windedness is that these have mixed together (by design) long enough that they are quite swarm prone.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

I really like using the swarm impulse to increase my numbers of colonies. Rarely don't use a queen cell. Will make splits at the first sign of swarming. Keep several extra nucs and duplex hives along with a queen castle or two and you'll be one happy happy beekeeper. Then the challenge is having enough equipment to house all the babies. Keeps me busy building boxes, assembling frames, processing wax, and painting it onto the new foundations. Went from 4 (four) to almost 50 in 14 months. They're amazing creatures. Learn to make your own bees and again...happy happy happy. Lots of honey too.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

I am colony-number constrained, not from lack of forage, or room, just time and the expense of new equipment. My Dear Husband thought we should stop at three. Currently I have _eleven_ queenright colonies and maybe one or two more still cooking away. Last year I gave away six splits I'd made, and kept four. I have no difficulty making more bees, and since I've never lost a colony, I don't need replacements.

If left to my own devices I might wind up on the news like those sad households with 80 cats living with them.

I hate culling queen cells, so I have to exert a lot of effort to prevent swarms, which so far has been successful with my own bees. I had a swarm in friend's hive after she abruptly decided to stop building it up to split. Bees settled that in their own way; but I caught the swarm and hived it. 

Enj.


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## spencer (Dec 7, 2004)

I've been using the brood break method now for about six years. It works great and I haven't had to buy any new bee packages. Last year was my best year as 11 out of 12 hives made it through the winter!


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## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

spencer said:


> I've been using the brood break method now for about six years. It works great and I haven't had to buy any new bee packages. Last year was my best year as 11 out of 12 hives made it through the winter!


What method do you use to induce brood break or do you depend on dearth ? What type of treatment do you do during the break ? thx


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## spencer (Dec 7, 2004)

I do splits in the late spring as soon as I start seeing drones. I let the one hive raise their own queen and leave the other one alone. The one with the queen may swarm, live through the winter to be split again in the spring or it may die during the winter.


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