# Swapping queens between hives



## Amiaji

I have a hive I started from a packing this past April. It started out like gangbusters but isn't doing so well anymore. The queen is still laying but she is not keeping the frames full. There are a lot of empty frames with no brood and some with lots of pollen but no brood. They have plenty of stores and I still see pollen coming in. It seems to me the queen just isn't doing her job.

I have a small 5 medium frame nuc that I put a swarm in. They are doing well and are about ready to be moved into an eight frame box.

My question is can I swap the queens between these two hives. I have read that you can remove a laying queen from one hive and introduce another laying queen without have to cage her or anything. The bees will accept a laying queen immediately. What I want to do is remove the queen from each hive and immediately put them in the other hive. 

Does this sound like a good idea or will I just be getting both of them killed? Has anyone here ever done this?


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## Richard Cryberg

The real question is why is the queen doing poorly? Swapping is not going to solve anything. If she is bad in one hive a new hive is not going to help if you move her. Besides, you said she was doing great earlier and poor now. Chances are there is not a thing wrong with her, but there is something wrong with your hive. What is your mite count? It is quite likely that queen was in a hive with a low mite count a few months ago and now the mite count is high enough the hive is getting ready to die due to mite introduced viruses. If that is the case you can put the best queen in the world in that hive and it will not help a thing. It is also possible you have some other disease going on in that hive and again putting a wonderful queen in there is not going to help a bit. You need to figure out what your real problem is and solve the real problem. The best way to start is to do an alcohol wash and find out what your mite % is. Do not tell us you see no mites on a sticky board. All that might mean is you have healthy mites and they are not dying. And do not tell us you have no mites as all hives have mites. Do you see bees that can not fly crawling on the ground going away from the hive? Do you see crawling bees with part of the wing sticking out to the side unnaturally or a deformed wing? Do you see any crawling bees that have an abdomen half of normal size? Do you see any crawling bees that are near solid black if you happen to have Italians? You also need to look real careful at the brood. Do you have a nice pattern of eggs and day old larva but a poor pattern of sealed brood? Or do you have a good pattern of sealed brood with few blanks?

Regardless of what the problem is if you do not solve it it is an odds on bet your second hive will get the same problem in another couple of months or less.


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## Phoebee

This situation is usually dealt with by pinching the original queen and doing a newspaper combine with the frames from the nuc. We did this our first year and the queen in the nuc turned out to be the best we've ever seen.

We tried something like you suggest this summer. We had an apparently good new queen but her hive had made supersedure cells almost immediately. She was laying well but they thought something was wrong.

We had another hive with a poor queen that needed replacing, and we had some queenless straggler workers that refused to leave a small nuc. So we contrived to move the new queen to the poor hive and the bad queen to the nuc with the straggler workers. This last move was just to keep her alive for a while in case something went wrong. The poor queen was expected to be queen lure shortly.

Everything went south when we had the two queens out of the hive for 2 hours, to allow the queen pheromones to diminish in the hive we were putting the young queen in. I did not have attendants in the cages and both queens died. But all worked out in the end. The weak hive made a good emergency queen and the other hive had supersedure queens in the works. Both are doing well now.


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## Amiaji

Ok so to answer a few questions.

Yes I did an alcohol wash. They had 16 mites in 347 bees. I am currently treating with Apivar. Two more weeks to go. 

There is also quite a few small hive beetles in the hive. I recently changed out the bottom board to one that has an oil tray to try and get the SHB under control. Also added a beetle trap.

The brood pattern looks decent what little there is of it. 

The reason for wanting to swap the queens is I am not totally convinced that it is the queen's fault that this hive is lagging behind the others. I strongly suspect it is her fault but not to the point of wanting to pinch her just yet, hence the reason for putting her in another hive. The hive I am going to put her in is very small and probably wont survive if I don't combine them with another hive. But if she lays up a storm in the smaller hive then I will know she wasn't the problem.

So back to my original question. Can I take the queen out of two hives and swap them with no introduction period needed?


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## Phoebee

I'd at least do a cage release, give them a few days to get used to the new queen before giving them a chance to ball her. You might get away with it, but if they kill her, you have no backup on hand.

We're helping one queen recover. Her nuc was struggling but the problem was robbing. Moving her seems to have fixed the problem. Starving queens don't lay.


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## RayMarler

To answer the question... Yes, this is how I do it.
Remove each queen and put her alone in a cage, one queen to a cage.
Set cages in shade.
Lightly spray bees of both hives with 1:1 sugar water.
Release queens into hives.
Works for me, on the few times I've had to do something like this.


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## beepro

The answer is also a yes. I do it differently than others here.
I just pick up the frame that she is on and place it in the hive that I want to
swap. Then closed up everything. After 15 minutes come back to check on
the queen again. If no balling then it is a successful introduction. If balling begins then
this is a weak queen that I will not keep over the winter. I've also picked up a strong queen to
released her into a queen right hive before. No balling or what so ever. A strong queen you can do
that without using any cage just a direct release.


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## Amiaji

Thanks for the replies.

Here is what I am thinking I will do. I will catch both queens in a queen clip and lay them on the top bars of the other hive and watch and see what happens. If they don't start balling them or anything then I will release them into the hive. Give them a few days and check on them to see how things are going.


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## beepro

If you have a strong queen then put both queen inside her individual cage. The bees will not ball on
a very strong laying queen as I've confirmed this before. Then wait
2 hours for the queen less mode to set in the hives. Then just released the queen from her cage right onto
the frame. Then closed the hive up. Check back in 15 minutes. If they don't balled on her then
it is a successful introduction. Check back within 2 hours to make sure if you're uncertain. Give yourself plenty of time
for this process.


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## Richard Cryberg

Almost 5% mites and SHB can both be major problems. After you kill the mites it can take a couple of months for the virus load to go back down after all the mites are dead. Do not expect instant results. That is not the way it works. A new queen is not going to do anything about that virus load. Are the bees strong enough to keep the SHB contained on top of the inner cover? If not the hive is probably a goner if those SHB are laying in the combs at all. If they are on top of the inner cover put a swiffer pad on the inner cover to trap them. Putting a strong queen in a sick hive is not going to help it.

Your nuc is about five frames and has lots of brood. That nuc will easy be ready for winter in NC if you feed it. You have over two more months you can feed in your mild climate.

I still do not see any benefit at all to swapping queens. You could easy end up with two dead hives. Why take the risk for no benefit? If it were me about the last thing I would consider would be swapping queens. Can you do it? Sure. But my point is what is the benefit? What do you hope to help?


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## Amiaji

beepro said:


> If you have a strong queen then put both queen inside her individual cage. The bees will not ball on
> a very strong laying queen as I've confirmed this before. Then wait
> 2 hours for the queen less mode to set in the hives. Then just released the queen from her cage right onto
> the frame. Then closed the hive up. Check back in 15 minutes. If they don't balled on her then
> it is a successful introduction. Check back within 2 hours to make sure if you're uncertain. Give yourself plenty of time
> for this process.


What is the reason for waiting 2 hours to introduce the new queen?




Richard Cryberg said:


> Almost 5% mites and SHB can both be major problems. After you kill the mites it can take a couple of months for the virus load to go back down after all the mites are dead. Do not expect instant results.  That is not the way it works. A new queen is not going to do anything about that virus load. Are the bees strong enough to keep the SHB contained on top of the inner cover? If not the hive is probably a goner if those SHB are laying in the combs at all. If they are on top of the inner cover put a swiffer pad on the inner cover to trap them. Putting a strong queen in a sick hive is not going to help it.
> 
> Your nuc is about five frames and has lots of brood. That nuc will easy be ready for winter in NC if you feed it. You have over two more months you can feed in your mild climate.
> 
> I still do not see any benefit at all to swapping queens. You could easy end up with two dead hives. Why take the risk for no benefit? If it were me about the last thing I would consider would be swapping queens. Can you do it? Sure. But my point is what is the benefit? What do you hope to help?


The reason for swapping the queens is so I will know if it is the queen or not. How am I to learn if I don't experiment?


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## Phoebee

Two hours is supposed to be enough for the hive to realize it is queenless. This makes discovering a new queen a delightful surprise (we guess).

One way or another, you're in for a learning experience. Maybe a hard one. And with that mite and SHB load, maybe not one in which swapping queens will make much difference.

I was talking to a South Carolina beekeeper yesterday at our local county fair bee booth. He asked about our SHB problems. He says he's lost half his hives to them. I suspect his hives were weakened by something else first (parasitic mite syndrome, for example), but that's just a guess. He describes very fast crashes as the beetles slime the hive, similar to one hive we lost earlier this year when it could not raise a viable queen.


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## roddo27846

I agree with Richard. If you have a small hive beetle problem there might not be anything you can do. Changing the queens will certainly not do anything but put both hives at risk. If you go queenless now and do not have access to a replacement queen that would probably spell doom to the colony. 

I live in NC and the hive beetles are pretty fierce here. If they are laying eggs (and they are), the colony can get slimed pretty quickly. You can take out frames and freeze them to kill the eggs and give the frames back, but that is a pretty desperate approach. Swiffer sheets, traps, baffles, and screened bottoms with oil all help control the adult beetles but the larva are the problem once they get established. They eat everything in a hive but the wood. 

Another thing that works against SHB is sunlight. The adults run from it and it kills the larva in a few minutes. You can put an open box (top off) on a bottom board and the adults will migrate down to avoid the sun. You can kill the adults you chase out of the box with your hive tool. You can pull individual frames and use the sun to kill some of the larva just by exposing them. They will quickly fall off and die. Pick a warm day so as not to chill our brood, but there may not be any viable brood on infested frames anyway, and the beetle larva are likely to do them in anyway. 

The only way I know to kill SHB eggs is freezing them. Hatching eggs will reinfest the colony pretty quickly too. Your colony is probably fighting for its life and the queen probably is just reacting to the situation and not the problem. 

SHB are disgusting creatures and it is a crying shame what they do in a beehive. I would do what I could to fight them where they are and try to avoid them migrating to my healthy colonies. Take preventive measures (traps, etc.) to fight their spread. I would count myself lucky that my other hive was doing well and not disrupt them.


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## Arbol

switching queens will NOT show you anything.
she lays poor in one hive she will lay poor in the next.

your reasoning for switching queens is not sound at all. 
in fact it's completely backwards thinking.

get the mites and shb under control first th ing.

after that, myself I'd leave her alone, no combines, feed the colony and overwinter her.
then watch next season, bet she blows up big times.

good thing using apivar, it will get the mite load down big time. leave it for 50-60 days the extra 15 days beyond the 42-45 will not hurt.

we don't have shb so I have no clue to your east coast shb problems.


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## Amiaji

SHB is a fact of life here. All my hives have some. The bees are for the most part keeping them under control so far. I have not seen any larvae or any slimed frames in any of the hives. I am taking steps to help control them.




Arbol said:


> switching queens will NOT show you anything.
> she lays poor in one hive she will lay poor in the next.
> 
> your reasoning for switching queens is not sound at all.
> in fact it's completely backwards thinking.


The reason for switching the queens is not to see if the one queen will lay better in the smaller hive but to see if the queen from the smaller hive can fill up all the empty comb in the bigger hive.


This is my first year beekeeping so I have been inspecting my hives weekly. All of them have varoa. All of them have SHB. All of them seem to be doing well except for this one. I have been monitoring this hive closely all season and although she seemed to do well at first her egg laying has slowed down a lot. Maybe it is the mites, maybe it is the SHB, or maybe it is her. I have been thinking about re-queening for a while now and thought this might be a way to re-queen and learn a little something at the same time.


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## Richard Cryberg

Amiaji said:


> The reason for swapping the queens is so I will know if it is the queen or not. How am I to learn if I don't experiment?


When it is a 95+% bet there is nothing wrong with your queen is it good odds to bet she is the problem? I have never seen a queen that was gangbusters in the spring that was bad in August unless she ran out of sperm and was laying lots of drones in worker comb. Is your queen laying a mix of workers and drones in worker comb? The good odds bet is the one I already suggested. You have a hive issue of some sort and need to figure out what it is and solve it to save the hive. I would not give good odds on saving it this late in the year in my winters. In your mild winters it might be saveable. If you are convinced the queen is the problem buy a new queen and set this one aside in a one frame nuc with foundation in the rest of the frames so there is no place for the SHB to have larva and watch that one frame daily for SHB larva until the new queen is either going gang busters, dead or you decide the queen was actually not the problem after all.

Now, it is possible your hive swarmed I suppose and the queen in there now is not the one you had in the spring. If that is the case a new queen might help because the replacement the bees raised could be a dud. I have never seen a swarmed hive raise a dud queen but it is possible. I have seen lots of swarmed hives end up queenless. That happens about 15% of the time in my experience. So, are you sure it is the same queen? Is she marked so you can be positive? If you think that is possible a replacement queen is still what I would do versus a swap. Why risk putting a known good queen in a suspect hive with known issues? Why risk the nuc which is doing fine? The best you can hope for from the nuc is it keeps doing fine and the worst is it turns into a dud if you swap.


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## roddo27846

I have been inspecting my hives weekly.

Therein may lie the problem. Every time you open the hive you set your bees back a few days. You release SHB that the bees have trapped in propolis. You upset the pheromone balance that will take the bees days to recover. You upset the temperature the bees work so hard to control. In short, you add stress to the colony. 

Best advice I have is to stop being so invasive. That said, the SHB have to be controlled quickly or it's lights out.


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## Slow Drone

Weekly inspections won't set the hive back in the least I don't agree with that statement. Your problem is the SHB they will slow a hive down. When the hive beetle population is high the bees are way to busy chasing the beetles around and takes them away from important work. I don't believe it's a queen issue either. Pull what you think is a frame you think has nothing on it turn it upside down and give it a good hard bump then watch the hive beetles rain off that frame that will tell you the whole story.


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## beepro

Yes, within 2 hours they will feel the queen is gone. Desperately trying
to find her to no avail. This is also your opportunity to swap their
queen. Doing a direct release and then observe the hive situation for potential
balling right there. Only a weak queen will get balled!
It is alright to do your little bee experiment. I do it all the time. Open up
the hives 3 times a day when I started to learn about my bees. No interruption on them. They will quickly set the hive back to normal the next day including sealing the propolis around the lids. Inspection has never been an issue with disrupting my bees daily activity. Have done this so many times before, no issue at all! If we don't experiment then we will never learn about them. I totally agree with you. Since day one all I've done is to experiment on them. Not just experimenting but to make improvement on them at the same time. From the bits and pieces of information posted here, I've created a high protein locally sourced ingredients patty subs formula. Smells like cookie and bees like it very much too. Relying on these subs to make my big fat winter bees every year. Without experimenting I cannot learn and improved on them.
Let's say, for example, that a queen died during this process then you still have one alive to do a combine. After the combine you will have a very strong hive to keep the SHB and mites down. Get a new laying queen if you have to when this process failed. It is a win-win situation to get rid of the weaker laying queen. Many queen suppliers still have queens for sale now. So do this early, do it now. I will give you full support, even in PMs too.
Another proven fact is that a newly mated queen will outlay an old 3rd year queen. How do you know for sure that the slow laying queen is not a 2nd season queen? Or other laying issue that she has? To find out you have to do a little experiment. Right now I have a July mated 20% Italians/80% carnis queen. She is inside an one frame nuc hive with no foragers. Can barely keep up with the larvae with her. Now with this queen, if I put her inside the spotty pattern hive on the OP, then this queen will filled up every open cell there is. No doubt about it. This experiment I've done it so many times before as part of my queens evaluation process for overwintering. My conclusion is, even without doing this queen swapping experiment, that a newly mated queen will outlaid the old queen. She is strong, full of eggs and eager to expand behaving like an early Spring queen. And for this reason I still have 7 QCs about to emerge within the week to keep up with any weak queen should I choose to requeen them. I already know the answer to your little bee experiment. So go ahead and make the queen swap! It is the only way to learn.


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## vtbeeguy

Until you get mites and SHB under control no queen is going to succeed in that hive. I get that doing new little things with the bees is fun I'm in my second year and I like to experiment a bit. But you can't ignore the basics and mites and shb are no doubt stressing the hive and they are fighting to survive. Once those are well in hand if the queen still lays like crap then consider swapping queens if you want to. Just my opinion on it take it for the newb opinion it is. Good luck


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## DaisyNJ

Here is my experience that may help you RETHINK your move of switching queens. I had a hive severely affected by DWV. I put apivar in. They kept making queen cups that went no where. Then the queen disappeared. I moved a queen from other hive. Guess what. She lingered just long enough to make some nice queen cells and disappeared. Almost by end of Apivar period, they had new queen that overwintered. 

So if I were you, I would prioritize putting in ApiVar, delay putting a new queen and keep weekly inspections to keep an eye on existing queen.


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## Amiaji

There are 2 more weeks to go with the Apivar treatment. I will not do anything before the end of the treatment. 

Thanks for all the advice.


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