# How often do you requeen?



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Hobbyist with 8 colonies. I don't requeen. One of my three-(or four) year old queens was superceded this past August, otherwise the original* queen is in all of my colonies.

*Original being defined as the swarm queen that arrived here (2013), or the home-grown queen if it's a daughter from one of my original queens. They are marked.

I have no plans to requeen - the bees know their business better than I do.

Enj.


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## Bee Arthur (Mar 21, 2015)

enjambres said:


> Hobbyist with 8 colonies. I don't requeen. One of my three-(or four) year old queens was superceded this past August, otherwise the original* queen is in all of my colonies.
> 
> *Original being defined as the swarm queen that arrived here (2013), or the home-grown queen if it's a daughter from one of my original queens. They are marked.
> 
> ...


I like the idea of allowing the bees to requeen themselves. Do others do this with success? I understand there may be a year or two with depressed production, but are there other downsides?


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

I'm curious as well


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

Um,,,I'm a commercial beekeeper.
Most of my friends re-queen their hives annually.
I have held steadfast to re-queening every other year.
The idea is to re-queen only the colonies that have under preforming queens or queens older than 2 years old.

However, at the end of every year when I take a look at my accounting on Quickbooks, it always appears that I have purchased as many queens as I have hives (exactly one more than you!).
So go figure!


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

That would depend on what I am looking for out of the colony and the queen.

When I started bee keeping, I want to see for myself. I've left many hives with older queens to see exactly how long those queens will stay productive, in comparison to a younger queen. 

I've found, under my conditions with my strain of bees, 2 1/2 seasons is about max for performance & good growth. After producing brood for 3 full seasons & coming into their fourth, they generally still lay good patterns, but seem to do so in spurts, staying in smaller colonies with only a few frames of brood at any one time. The older queens colonies seemed to be more sensitive to the flow, and only actively growing at the peak of the main flow.( As compared to other hives with younger queens) 
I've found queens that have over wintered 3 times coming out of winter with nice large populations in triple deeps, but faltering right before the main flow with low brood rearing and many frames of comb packed with pollen.

While most of the established over wintered hives do requeen themselves about every 2-3 years (and I think many go into winter with a 2 queen status) I found it interesting and perplexing many of my early breeder queen colonies would rather reduce in size and exist with a smaller colony than supercede the queens that had over wintered 3 times. I have several 2012 queens currently going into their 4th winter (Last time I looked ) Each spring I fully expect to see a replacement and am surprised to see that old yellow dot after yet another winter.

It's obviously been a longevity experiment at this point. I've been able to get a few generations of daughters, over winter them multiple times and _Still have grandma available to graft from_. Who cares if she still is able to head a production colony? Her past performance was noted and her continued survival is a real bonus. 

After observing how long the queens are productive as far as mite tolerance & control, vigor, growth and actual production, I'd say If I got onto a requeening schedule for production hives, it would be at the 2- 2 1/2 year actual age mark. The timing for requeening would also be dictated by other factors too, including the health and growth of the colony coming out of winter.


_Late mated_ summer queens that come into their first real brood producing season after over wintering , just coming into their prime, are going to be a little different that a queens reared much earlier the same year, but have already produced brood through an entire summer. That paint dot isn't exactly specific as to the potential performance longevity of that queen.

It's like when I do my canning this time of year. If I just write '2015' on the lid, anyone else would think that chili I made yesterday was a year old, once the calendar turns to 2016 next week.

Here's a photo of a young queen in 2012










Photo here in 2014, still very productive:



















After over wintering again and showing signs of slowing in spring of 2015 she was finally superceded in May. 

Of course this is also relative to the management of the hives. Many of those hives had not been 'chemically' treated for mites. (But may have had other natural mite reducing management) After the unusually warm winter last year, little or no brood break like I usually enjoy, and resulting increased ability for mites to reproduce, My conclusions have to reflect that issue as well. Had I treated those hives in fall/winter of 2014-2015, those older queens may have still shown themselves to be productive. But in comparison to hives with younger queens that were not treated, the older queens colonies were suppressed more by the over wintered mites in spring, I assume due to the queens slowing vigor and less ability to 'out produce' the mites.

I guess my conclusion is, as long as the mite population is adequately controlled, (No matter if it is natural genetic suppression, management suppression or chemical suppression) I'd trust a well mated queen to produce for two full brood rearing seasons before I'd replace her on a regular basis for standard production hives, if you are considering ONLY her brood production level with no other benefits for queen replacement like mite suppression or changing the genetic make up of the colony. 

If I had bees with more intense mite issues than I currently do, I would aggressively requeen with virgin queens/capped queen cells annually along with other mite suppressing options. Some folks cage the established queen to invoke a brood break. I do Fly Back, or simulated swarms to give older queens brood breaks without chemical treatments or confinement periods. 

Please note: I am not a treatment free advocate, but try to stay as treatment reduced as possible.


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## Bee Arthur (Mar 21, 2015)

Wow, Lauri, great information. I wish I had 10% of your bee smarts.


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## Nabber86 (Apr 15, 2009)

I wouldn't even think of re-queening until I was certain that I had my swarm prevention techniques down perfect (or nearly so). So, I don't re-queen. Also as a hobbiest, it doesn't make financial sense. I am not it it for the honey money.


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## D Coates (Jan 6, 2006)

Sideliner here with 30-40 colonies. Personally I don't requeen unless I notice a problem. I've noticed the hives with older queens with either get swarmy (of which I will steal the original queen and 5 frames to make a "old" nuc) or she'll start petering out and get replaced by me or the hive (mark you queens when you get the chance to know when this occurs) or she'll peter out and the hive will go queenless for me to figure out and hopefully rectify in time. Winter is normally the great equalizer, removing sub par queens.

I am interested in honey production so that's the concern for me. If the hive is not producing, I quickly get in there and figure out why. If it's queen related I remove her and leave the hive alone for a day or 2. I then plop a "fresh" nuc (usually a captured swarm, or a nuc made from swarm cells) on there with a newspaper combine. It gets the population boosted quick and with a new queen. Normally that hive is rocking in short order.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I've found issues with poor performance is many times due to other factors that are commonly blamed solely on the queen.

She may not have the best genetics for natural mite control, but may have other excellent traits such as gentleness and productiveness if you give them some mite suppression help. Before you pinch an apparently low performing queen, I suggest treating for mites and feed. If after that she is still not performing well, then replace. You don't want to drop a new queen in a mite infested or struggling colony anyway, so that is still a good way to prepare your colony for a new queen should it be necessary.

If you don't know the age of the queen, where she came from or any history, I would also replace, or you're risking the entire colony on too many unknowns. If she's performing well, use her for a while, but be aware that replacement at some point is probably a good move unless you don't have any other options that are better. Just a 'new queen' from another unknown source is not a better replacement. Rearing you own or getting them from someone you trust that is successful, is your best option. 

If disease was a problem I would treat the colony and requeen immediately. Disease issues are totally different than mite issues in my opinion. That's probably a lack of good vigor due to poor genetic diversity or generations of antibiotic dependent bees. 

But even a superior queen under optimal conditions won't last for ever. Knowing your stock's history, local exposures, climate conditions and limitations can help you keep your hives reliably producing well.

Those 2012 queens have never turned into drone layers. But after three full season's, the amount of brood reared in their fourth season was significantly less. Most of the colonies in their fourth year turned into a content 'retired' state in a single deep, instead of four or five deeps as they had been in previous years. 

For breeder queens that was fine. For production hives or hives with more mite issues than I have, re queening regularly would be necessary to avoid dwindling, low production or losses.

I risk coming out of winter this next season with a failure at some point, ether queenless or with a winter raised drone layer replacement with the old queens. But in a single deep, I'm willing to take that risk to see an end to the longevity experiment. I wouldn't risk a larger colony on a queen that's gone through 4 full seasons. If she's been replaced and the new queen is well mated, I'll have to try to determine if she was mated in late summer and went into winter with the old queen as a 2 queen colony or was spring raised. 

Below is a frame of May brood from a queen coming into her third season 2014. Her colony had been 'freshened' as I call it with a 'Fly Back Swarm' method to avoid swarming and give them a brood break. This colony had so much new brood that fall (with a little stimulative feeding) I was sure they had a new queen. I was surprised to see the old queen still heading the hive spring of 2015. But her productive days were over although she continued to live on into fall of 2015.










Below is a 2015 frame of brood from a newly mated queen:










Below is a frame of brood in 2015 from a 2012 three time over wintered queen:










That older queens colony never grew beyond a single deep all season, although she still laid up good clean frames well, she appeared to take breaks in between frames and never had more than a few frames of brood at any one time. That queen also needed to be treated for mites in spring to get spotty patterns tight again. Not enough bees available or enough vigor left for more natural methods of mite control


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

I have been from a single hive beekeeper to a commercial beekeeper, and everything in between in my years of beekeeping, I have had to good fortune of having ben married to a woman who was a captain in the army. Her specialized field necessitated location transfers to new duty stations every 18 months to two years. This afforded me an opportunity to understand many of the differences in beekeeping across a wide variety of regions both geographical and climatically. One thing that has seemed to be nearly universal for me everywhere I have been, is that although queens can rule a hive for as many as 5 years, they begin to decline to varying degrees after two years, The goals of the individual beekeeper vary greatly. As such how productive a queen is can also vary in importance. My production hives get re-queened every other year After the summer solstice. I find this leaves the hives with the best early spring buildup. However, these queens are still of value to me. I have several observation hives. I often find that managing swarming in them is rather arduous because they are the only hive in their location. Swarm season is very busy so tending a single hive at remote locations with any degree of regularity is not possible. These queen with reduces brood productions or sporadic production make good candidates for replacement of the now 4 year old queens within the observation hives. If one of the observation hives swarms they have new young queen, she in turn makes a candidate to replace a two year queen if she was produced after the solstice which they usually are. Just another example of beekeeping diversity.


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## ABruce (Dec 27, 2013)

I am coming into my third full year and have definitely found that I need to mark queens and keep records. I have one hive out of 8 that went into winter with the original queen, the others have either superseded or I have replaced due to poor patterns or queenless. I noticed Lauri's picture with the numbered tag and have seen the tags for sale. I think that would be a far better marking system. But I have enough problems getting a drop from a paint pen, how do you get the tag to stay on?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

RichardsonTX said:


> Just taking a survey! How often do you requeen? why? when? and are you a hobby beekeeper or commercial beekeeper?


I'm a Hobby Beekeeper with 500 hives. lol I requeen when I make splits in the Spring or when I see a queen is failing, laying poorly.

I'm thinking about putting a cell into each hive after I take a split out of them this coming Spring. I'd like to see how well that gets more colonies through the next Summer.


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## michkel (Dec 1, 2012)

Interesting discussion, I'm following and reading everyone's thoughts.

My original hive superseded their original queen after 2 years, and I never marked the new queen. Haven't gotten around to learning how to do that yet. I imagine they will replace the current one (if it hasn't already been done last summer) this spring. Her laying pattern looked good this past summer.

sqkcrk.......I'm thinking with 500 hives that you have bypassed Hobby Beekeeper status. :lpf:


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

I don't requeen, I let the bees do it themselves. If I see a hive with a poor queen I pinch her and add a frame with plenty of eggs from another hive to aid in their requeening. I have made queens for splits or split hives with supercedure cells but thats the extent of introducing "foreign" queens to my hives and it's all from local stock open mated kind of queens.


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## Sunday Farmer (Nov 13, 2013)

"Late mated summer queens that come into their first real brood producing season after over wintering , just coming into their prime, are going to be a little different that a queens reared much earlier the same year, but have already produced brood through an entire summer. That paint dot isn't exactly specific as to the potential performance longevity of that queen." -Lauri

I get what you're saying, but I don't think you can draw a conclusion from this in terms of longevity.


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## WWW (Feb 6, 2011)

I have been an advocate for letting the bees re-queen as they see fit however my honey production does suffer as a result of this type of hands off management. Over the years I could see certain hives not thriving while others thrived and this would change from year to year, I knew it was from not having vigorous young queens in the suffering colonies due to a lack of proper queen management so I have been in the process of laying out a re-queening program which will be put into place this coming new year. 

My plan is to pull the queens out of the hives the first week in July and bank them for the summer which will give the hives a summer brood break and allow the hives to re-queen themselves, those colonies that don't re-queen successfully will have the older queens waiting in the banks as back-up. This probably isn't the best re-queening program but it fits my goals for now as it will keep more genetic diversity in the colonies, I do have plans for periodically grafting from the better queens in the future but for now getting new queens into the hives each fall or every other fall to improve the health and honey production of each hive is the important thing. 

Lauri,
Thank you for putting into words what I have been seeing myself over the years, your posts are quite enlightening. I have been seeing exactly what you have been describing but until now I have never taken the necessary steps to correct the problem. The loss of two production hives this past late fall has spurred me into action and I will be taking a more hands on approach with these colonies. 

The two dead-outs didn't have queens when they died and there is no good excuse for letting it happen.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

www


> My plan is to pull the queens out of the hives the first week in July and bank them for the summer which will give the hives a summer brood break and allow the hives to re-queen themselves, those colonies that don't re-queen successfully will have the older queens waiting in the banks as back-up. This probably isn't the best re-queening program but it fits my goals for now as it will keep more genetic diversity in the colonies, I do have plans for periodically grafting from the better queens in the future but for now getting new queens into the hives each fall or every other fall to improve the health and honey production of each hive is the important thing.


I don't have bees yet. Is there a risk of getting sub-standard queens by making them when there is no flow going on. I ask because I am getting my first nuc this spring and if it builds well, I would like to make a small split off of it in july so that I might have more then one hive going into winter.
Thanks
gww


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

For a time, I tried the Minnesota Hygienic strain. Beautiful queens, and excellent brood patterns. Big clusters going into winter. Next spring, small, weak clusters. So, boost with a few frames of brood, and let-em-be. They build up well, nice patterns, and some supercede on the flow. These go into winter with good clusters and come out of winter weak again. 

I've seen this over and over and over again. The new queen raised by supercedure or swarming is the same queen as the original. Same faults. So why would you allow inferior stock to re-queen themselves, when it is very likely the result will be the same inferior stock as the original. It makes no sense to me. And it isn't just about honey production...for those that feel they don't care if a colony makes a profitable honey crop. It's about the whole package...honey production, wintering, disease resistance, temper...the whole package. 

So, that's why I re-queen a colony of bees when I feel they will benefit from a new queen. Now, if I have an excellent colony, that goes on and on and on...year after year being one of the top producers in the apiary, and winters well and never shows chalk, and doesn't staple my socks to my ankles...well, if they supercede then so be it. I want that stock to perpetuate itself. Those are the stocks I look at for possible breeders. And the daughters of those stocks are what I use to re-queen those colonies I find have issues. 

So I guess it's a case by case decision. Never say never.


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## WWW (Feb 6, 2011)

There is always a chance for ending up with a substandard queen at any time, spring of summer, however I will be feeding my hives throughout the summer so I don't see any out of the ordinary risk where re-queening is concerned. 

Bear in mind that splitting during summer usually requires feeding the split and it would be best to continue feeding right through the Fall to have the colony built up and ready for winter.


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## WWW (Feb 6, 2011)

Michael,
I do understand your reasoning and wholeheartedly agree about the whole package, however in my situation I need a starting point, a point of reference if you will, right now I don't know which queen is good or bad or what is actually neglect on my part. As I stated above I do have plans for grafting from the better queens in the future but for now I need to sort out this self induced mess I am in and establish that point of reference .


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

www
Thank you.
gww


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## WWW (Feb 6, 2011)

:thumbsup:


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

When I look at the numbers (tracking my queens) there is no question that youth (1-2 years) out performs old (3rd season plus).
on third year hives I run a tough cull. 

Three years is a long time these days for a bug to sustain herself. I know the young filter her food clean, but the in house disease and Chem residues must act against her longevity

I've brought in Cali queens that hit my cull on their second season....


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

So far I've just requeened when an existing queen was clearly failing. That existing queen was never really old, but was clearly a bum with a bad brood pattern at a time of the year where she should be booming.

I went into this winter with one VSH queen a year and a half old. She's my prize. We split her hive to make two nucs this summer, and she's in one of the nucs. She is no longer the friskiest layer (one of her daughters is a firecracker), but I'd like to make more queens from her in the spring if she makes it. 

I see no profit in replacing a perfectly good queen just because she's got some miles on her. But I also see little to gain in keeping a bum. You want to keep the best of them around for breeding stock.

I do see profit in bringing in outside genes from bees with characteristics you like. I will requeen my bums with good outside stock.

Somebody a few months back noted that he has a 7-year-old queen! He ascribes her long life to living in a nuc with limited room to lay, and I'd guess also to some pretty active swarm management to keep her that way. She has not used up all her eggs, so keeps hanging on. So I'm hoping I can keep The Lavender Lady (who sports a dot of a non-standard color) around for as long as she can produce firecracker daughters.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

gww said:


> www
> 
> I don't have bees yet. Is there a risk of getting sub-standard queens by making them when there is no flow going on. I ask because I am getting my first nuc this spring and if it builds well, I would like to make a small split off of it in july so that I might have more then one hive going into winter.
> Thanks
> gww


I'm answering because the real experts seem to have missed your post, and they'd know better. But the word I've seen is that some people think swarm cells produce the best queens. Those generally happen during a flow, when the hive is really booming and building up fast. How has that worked for me? We've yet to see swarm preparations, and entering our second winter with bees, we have yet to have a good flow. We spent this May and June eagerly waiting for swarm cells in our good hive, hoping to breed more bees.

In July we forced the issue and made a couple of nucs, which produced emergency queen cells and resulted in two queens that seem pretty good, plus the original in a nuc. Worked out OK, and I'm told that's typical of emergency queen cells. Some breeders say to kill the first couple of emergency queen cells that cap, because they were made from the oldest eggs. The eggs that started getting the full royal treatment on the day they were laid may make stronger queens, and those are a couple of days behind the older eggs.

Supercedure cells may not do as well, I'm told, because they're produced by a failing queen. If she was never great in the first place, there is no reason to think her daughter will be better.

I would recommend that you try to go with two nucs rather than just one. Not knowing what other apiaries you have withing 5 miles or so, if you are isolated, any new queens you raise will not be able to mate successfully with drones from their own hive. Plus, it is hard to know if your bees are doing well without another hive to compare them to.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

>>Supercedure cells may not do as well, I'm told, because they're produced by a failing queen. If she was never great in the first place, there is no reason to think her daughter will be better.<<

Supercedure is generally done to replace failing queens, yes, but the act of supercedure may have nothing to do with the original queen being poor. It is mearly an act to refresh the queen in that hive. Once that egg is started towards supercedure, all those compounding factors start falling into place, which do determine the viability of that replacement


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