# Induced Supersedure



## MethowKraig (Aug 21, 2011)

I have been working on a system of re-queening my hives without introducing a foreign queen. My goal is to initiate a supersedure, wherein the mother and daughter often will lay side by side for a period of days or weeks. The advantage of two queens laying in the spring build-up is obvious, even if only for a period of a week or so.

The system I have developed has repeatedly been successful in raising daughter queen cells below a queen excluder, with the laying mother above. And I have repeatedly found the cells hatched, not destroyed. I believe I am onto something that has great promise.

However, I have had no success in getting the hive to accept the daughter. In one study of induced supersedure I read on line, the authors used an observation hive and witnessed the virgin being balled upon hatching. So I am suspecting this is what is occurring.

In supersedure, the driving forces is a reduction in queen pheromone, so I am thinking of a couple different ways of reducing the queen pheromone in the hive just before the virgin queen(s) hatch:

One way is a pheromone barrier. Does anyone have experience with these?

The second way is a temporary split just before emergence, where I would force the field bees to be in the queenless half with the emerging virgin for a few days, then reunite with the queen right portion above. Perhaps that would break their "loyalty" to the mother. (The field bees are the ones with an "attitude")

Any ideas.

"Met How" Kraig


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I've have very good luck just splitting the brood nest with an excluder and having at least a drone sized entrance above and below it. (A bound excluder with a notch would work perfectly for this). They raise a queen in the queenless half of the brood nest almost every time. You can pull the excluder after they are both laying if you like or leave it in until fall.


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## MethowKraig (Aug 21, 2011)

Not sure why I am not having success with the virgin queen. She hatches below the queen excluder with the laying queen above. But come back in a couple weeks and the virgin is absent, where she should be laying by then. Only the old queen survives.

One thing I have realized is to rotate brood down just before the cells hatch. Otherwise, the bees abandon the lower box and the virgin. 

But I am still puzzled why I can't get her to mate and be accepted. As I said, I am thinking of some method to reduce the pheromone levels in the lower box.

Ideas?

"Met How" Kraig


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Maybe she is returning to the top entrance.


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## MethowKraig (Aug 21, 2011)

Hmm, I suppose that is possible. 

Initially, I reverse the top entrance but by the time the virgin hatches, I have returned the top entrance to the front. 

I will try leaving it to the rear.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I will try leaving it to the rear. 

I think that's a good plan.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Have you tried rotating the bottom box to the top just before the queen cell is to emerge? Or tried the whole operation reversed, raising the new queen above instead of below the excluder? Normally, a queen cell is intro'd into the top when doing requeening without finding the old queen. G.M.Doolittle also played with raising and mating queens in the top supers of a queen-right colony.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Here is Doolittle's method:
http://bushfarms.com/beesdoolittle.htm#CHAPTER13
http://bushfarms.com/beesdoolittle.htm#APPENDIX


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## MethowKraig (Aug 21, 2011)

Wow! Great info.

I can see several things I am doing wrong.
1. Yes, the virgin should be on top with her entrance to the rear.
2. After the cell hatched, I was removing the excluder. (I was trying to mimic a true supersedure, wherein, often the two queens will lay side by side.)
3. I can see it is important to keep the queens separated. Probably with a double QE to keep the queens from even being able to contact each other.

I can see why Cloake uses the upper box to raise the cells. No reversals are necessary.


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