# introducing new queen to split - with eggs or without



## beenoob (Jun 16, 2016)

Ive been playing around with the thought of splitting and getting my info in order before I perform all my splits, I want to go from my 4 to 8. 

Here is the deal, reading the typical split, I would take some frames of honey, eggs/larva and put it in another box and either let them raise their own queen or add a queen.

I will be purchasing queens to speed up the process this season. 

Having a couple conversations with other bee keepers, one told me, never add a new queen to another box that you just split that has larva and eggs. He is saying, take a couple frames of honey, shake off a bunch of bees in the split, and add a couple frames that are drawn WITHOUT eggs/larva, wait one day so the bee's know they are in dire need of a queen, then put the queen in and let them eat away the wax and set her free.

This method he says is tried and true. Because, when adding a new queen to a split that has eggs and larva there are higher chances of the hive balling her. Any thoughts on this?


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## orthoman (Feb 23, 2013)

I have done it with brood present - including open brood. I always shake in lots of bees and add a caged queen. When I put the queen cage in, I tape over the candy so they cannot release her - but they have to get use to her odor/pheromones. I leave the cage in 3 or 4 days before I remove the tape and let them eat the candy and release her. So far, hasn't been a problem.

I think the other way may work also, I just don't do it that way.


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## BigBlackBirds (Aug 26, 2011)

beenoob said:


> Ive been playing around with the thought of splitting and getting my info in order before I perform all my splits, I want to go from my 4 to 8.
> 
> Here is the deal, reading the typical split, I would take some frames of honey, eggs/larva and put it in another box and either let them raise their own queen or add a queen.
> 
> ...


There arent many guarantees with adding a mated queen. Lots of ways to go about it and sometimes they will readily accept a queen but other times not so much no matter how much you try. And the weather is one of the variables that impacts results and you can't do much about that.

The most reliable but time consuming method is to release the queen under a screened cage onto a patch of open cells. The workers cant get thru the screen to kill her and she will start to lay in the cells. After she has been laying they generally dont bother her anymore but chew under the screen and release her. Normally if you go back in a couple of days to release her they have already done so and youll find her wandering around laying. It isn't 100% but its closer than any of the other methods with the understanding that it takes time to cage her. Its the standard way to release breeder queens/special stock that you cant afford to lose


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

beenoob said:


> Having a couple conversations with other bee keepers, one told me, never add a new queen to another box that you just split that has larva and eggs. He is saying, take a couple frames of honey, shake off a bunch of bees in the split, and add a couple frames that are drawn WITHOUT eggs/larva, wait one day so the bee's know they are in dire need of a queen, then put the queen in and let them eat away the wax and set her free.
> 
> This method he says is tried and true. Because, when adding a new queen to a split that has eggs and larva there are higher chances of the hive balling her. Any thoughts on this?


This is what I believe. To help insure acceptance of the new queen, I now introduce her into a hopelessly queenless hive or nuc. If the hive or nuc has a chance of making a queen of their own from their own eggs or young larva, then sometimes that is what they do, and no matter what I do to introduce a queen they will ball her.

Ideally I like to make up a nuc or remove the queen in the hive to be requeened 7-9 days ahead of new queen introduction. I then go through it and remove all queen cells the day of introducing the new queen.This way works very well, the bees know they have no hope of survival as a hive and more readily accept a new queen.


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## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

RayMarler said:


> Ideally I like to make up a nuc or remove the queen in the hive to be requeened 7-9 days ahead of new queen introduction. I then go through it and remove all queen cells the day of introducing the new queen.This way works very well, the bees know they have no hope of survival as a hive and more readily accept a new queen.


Yes and if your of a mind to do so you can use those queen cells to make additional nucs or even requeen other hives.


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## DavidZ (Apr 9, 2016)

as long as she is a laying queen you can run her straight in to the hive, 
if she is Not laying you will run into problems and need to introduce her by your chosen method.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I make up hundreds of nucs every summer. We take 2-3 frames of brood...both open and sealed, and some comb with honey, and enough bees to cover the brood. Probably make 50-60 on nuc day. When the nuc boxes are filled, they are taken to a nuc apiary and given a caged, mated queen, cork out on candy end. Ten days later I pull the cage and check for laying queen. In 2-3%, the queen has been rejected. I cut the emergency cells out and give another caged queen. These always take.

Waiting too long after make up, when open brood is present, prompts the bees to start cells. Then when the queen is introduced, they reject her. That's why some say no open brood in a split. So, don't wait. It only takes a few hours for the bees to know they're queenless.


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## BigBlackBirds (Aug 26, 2011)

So I assume you must be mating in mini-nuc type equipment on a different interval than when you are making nucs?


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## beenoob (Jun 16, 2016)

RayMarler said:


> This is what I believe. To help insure acceptance of the new queen, I now introduce her into a hopelessly queenless hive or nuc. If the hive or nuc has a chance of making a queen of their own from their own eggs or young larva, then sometimes that is what they do, and no matter what I do to introduce a queen they will ball her.
> 
> Ideally I like to make up a nuc or remove the queen in the hive to be requeened 7-9 days ahead of new queen introduction. I then go through it and remove all queen cells the day of introducing the new queen.This way works very well, the bees know they have no hope of survival as a hive and more readily accept a new queen.


This is very close to what his method was. No larva no capped brood. Simply drawn frames and 2-3 frames of stores and lots of bee's. He says give them a wait, but he was only speaking of a day or two. Then they will desperately accept the new queen after eating candy plug.


the caged queen over several cells so she can lay in isolation is something brand new to me and im starting to read up on it, sounds like solid safe method and I dont have to worry about avoiding putting in capped brood and larva in my split.


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## photobiker (Mar 23, 2015)

Since I'm heading in this direction myself I have additional questions. I will be using unmated queens. Could you take frames with capped and open brood, no queen, put them in a hive with honey, pollen and nurse bees a few days before introducing a queen to allow for the open brood to be capped? I see a problem as I type this I think, 1-3 day old larvae my be present so queen cell making starts. Would removing the queen cells prior to new queen introduction solve the balling problem?


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

photobiker said:


> Since I'm heading in this direction myself I have additional questions. I will be using unmated queens. Could you take frames with capped and open brood, no queen, put them in a hive with honey, pollen and nurse bees a few days before introducing a queen to allow for the open brood to be capped? I see a problem as I type this I think, 1-3 day old larvae my be present so queen cell making starts. Would removing the queen cells prior to new queen introduction solve the balling problem?


I think to be sure, you would need at the very least 5 days before you could be minimally sure a queen cell would not be started. As Ray Marler says they have to be hopelessly queenless. It would be very easy to miss the odd egg somewhere and I believe a queen can be started on up to a 3 day old larvae so this takes us up to 6 days possible after last egg laid. Now the odds are the bees will simply accept the introduced queen but if you want to remove all possibilities of rejection I think you would need to wait a week. If I remember correctly that was M Bush's recommendation, otherwise as M. Palmer says, put the new queen in right away before the bees make the decision to start a replacement queen.

I lost an expensive queen last summer when the bees chose to stiff her and roll their own. Three others were accepted under similar conditions.


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## BigBlackBirds (Aug 26, 2011)

Michael Palmer said:


> In 2-3%, the queen has been rejected.


I'm going to make another guess that you have only banked newly mated queens for a short period of time before you introduce to a nuc? 

I normally just work with queens cells these days and its been a long time since I've used a number of mated queens but I've seen many instances where 25-50% of the batch using mated queens were not accepted. Always figured handling, shipping, re-handling and banking didnt exactly help the process of getting them accepted.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I've done it Michael Palmer's way myself, I've even posted about it in the forums here, and it has worked out great. But here's my problem, sometimes the queens are rejected. Some strains of bees or hives of bees just refuse to accept any outside queen and prefer to raise one of their own. Period.

Now, I'm just a little hobby beekeeper, I don't have a lot of nucs storing queens and I've never run a queen bank. Shoot, I've never purchased queens until the past few years to start working on improving the genetics of my hives. So here's the deal, I purchase a queen or three and introduce them and they get rejected. That's a chunk of change for me to be losing, as well as a disappointing "let down" and monkey wrench in my plans here. Some hives accept outside queens fine, but some don't, they won't even accept queen cells. That's why I came up with the way I mentioned above. Once a hive has lost a queen and taken a week or more to raise their own cells, and then I go in and destroy those cells, that hive is now demoralized, desperate, and suicidal. Now if I give them a queen, they will accept her.

There are many ways to re-queen a hive, and many different reasons to do so, and many different resources needed per way of doing it. The way I posted was to help insure positive acceptance when the resources are few and the money is on the line. I don't use this way every time, mostly just when I'm introducing purchased queens or when trying to re-queen a difficult hive. If I don't have the time to do it this way, then other ways are used.


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## BigBlackBirds (Aug 26, 2011)

RayMarler;1516064 But here's my problem said:


> 100% agree that some are very unwilling to accept anything. Secondly, I think acceptance gets much easier when you are grafting/mating your own and everything genetic wise starts to blend together somewhat. Thirdly, even when you have to bank your own vs using a cell immediately I still think acceptance is less cumbersome than having them shipped across the country and then trying to get them accepted.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

BigBlackBirds...
I totally agree with all points you made, very well said.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

BigBlackBirds said:


> I'm going to make another guess that you have only banked newly mated queens for a short period of time before you introduce to a nuc?


I don't bank queens. We catch every 4 days, and use them or ship them before the next catch.


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## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

Early in my beekeeping experience I was introduced to Buckfast bees. On introducing new MO queens, my mentor's "promotion" was something along the lines of "The bees seem to be aware that they are in the presence of something special". Observing ~99% acceptance over the decades, my own speculation, eventually, was that perhaps they had stronger pheromone production. The bees did seem to readily accept virtually every offering. 

There has been a drop in acceptance rates in the last few years. It appears to directly be related to cross border shipping delays & resulting stress but that's somewhat speculative. Some queens are arriving with indications of possible overheating in transit - melted & re-solidified queen candy. Queens are released & accepted, sometimes only to fail before or soon after egg laying commences.

Recounting queen acceptance is a classic case of comparing apples to almost every other fruit in the world. Without the benchmark of what kind ( race or cross, location, season, degree of beek experience, and on & on...) the results become difficult to assess.


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