# large scale requeening



## rainesridgefarm (Sep 4, 2001)

I have heard that some large operators are using queen cells in the upper supers to requeen during the honey flow. I have produced more queen cells then I have mating nucs to put them in. Does this work and who has done this? I would like to requeen all my old queens that are starting to slow down this way.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I've not done it myself. I've read that G. M. Doolittle did it in the late 1800's with great success. I've read in the forums here where a person has done this with great success. If I reach a point where I need to requeen, this is what I am going to try. If you do try this method of requeening yourself, I would appreciate feed back from you on the results. Best of luck!


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## greenbeekeeping (Feb 13, 2003)

Ive done it like that and learned it from two commercial operators here. IT works great.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

If you do decide to requeen with cells in the supers...be sure there is a flow on. The success rate will be much higher.


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## adgjoan (Oct 19, 2008)

Do you have to kill the old queen first or does the virgin queen do it? should you put more than one queen cell in each hive to insure sucess? 

Joan


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

Supers on and a honey flow.... WHAT'S THAT ??? 

What I do is give them a large dose of 95% formic and come back in three days and put cells in.


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

*using queen cells in the upper supers to requeen during the honey flow.*

I have used Cordovan ripe queen cells to genetically mark the re-queening of a friends 27 "hot" hives and it works1

Ernie


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

*Forced supercedure.*

Forced supercedure is the term used in the bee literature/books.
Ernie


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

*Supers on and a honey flow*

You know!
It's when the bees are drawing out foundation and you can see the whitening of the combs.
Ernie


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## rainesridgefarm (Sep 4, 2001)

Thank you for the feedback. I will try to do 150 hives this way and see how they do. I do like the formic acid idea but I do not think we would have the weather window to do that. What time do you apply it Keith?


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## stangardener (Mar 8, 2005)

just yesterday this topic came up in a conversation i had with another beek. one of the things that was said is that a virgin can still bend and so has an advantage over the existing laying queen.


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

I've done this alot, and it seems to work most of the time. Works great on really hot hives, no need to look for the old queen.


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## Tom G. Laury (May 24, 2008)

*The Method*

I have heard described calls for inserting a cell in the top super while honeyflow still on. Also much better results if a cell protector is used, protecting the sides of the cell but allowing the virgin to emerge throgh the tip. Very little time involved.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Ya, cell protect those cells,
keep them from being chewed


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

Disclaimer: I personally do not know what I am talking about.

That being said, I attended a queen rearing seminar put by Larry Conner earlier this year. He said that some commercial operations use queen cells to requeen. They did not bother to find and kill the old queen. Just stuck a queen cell in during the flow. He said they got about 80% acceptance. 

Neil


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

rainesridgefarm said:


> What time do you apply it Keith?


RRF, 80's is a good temp, this way you don't have too worry about cell protectors because there is no queen in the hive.

P.S good for mite too.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Keith , what kind of dose do you give them and how is it applied? We can get formic at 85% here not 95%. Tricky stuff I imagine, kill queens and not brood.

Jean-Marcd


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## rainesridgefarm (Sep 4, 2001)

what time do you put it on? Just before the honey flow, then super for the flow, then put in Queen cells..... I am sure the timing will be different depending on what part of the country you are in and what you are managing your hives for.


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## suttonbeeman (Aug 22, 2003)

I have used it for the last 5 years....USUALLY works great....80%. However about 4 weeks ago I put in 230 cells to requeen at begining of locust flows. Well It rained the whole flow for the second straight year. I ended up with about less than 25% take and 25% queenless as she couldnt get mated. Still trying to straighten it out! If flow is on AND MONSOON doesnt set in it works....if MONSOON sets in you have a BIG MESS!


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Big mess indeed especially when you had a good queen to start with albeit older. What to do? Changing 1 queen at a time is so slow and does not guarantee success.

Jean-Marc


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## Gene Weitzel (Dec 6, 2005)

I divide all my hives at the end of the main flow into story and a half (a deep and a medium), I give one a new laying queen, and leave the other with the old queen. If one or the other is not doing so well, I re-combine in the early spring (or late fall if I can tell by then) with one that is doing well. If both are doing well, I can either add a second deep to both in the early spring and leave them as two hives or nuc one queen and re-combine. So far it has worked out very well (of course the key here is my southerly location that allows them to overwinter well in the story and a half configuration).


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## DRUR (May 24, 2009)

*Response to Gene's post*

Gene:
Thanks for sharing some of your management techniques. I have a few more questions for you though.

1. For those queens not requeened, what is their propensity to swarm next spring.

2. Do you find that those who have been requeened in the late summer early fall have more production the next year.

When I kept bees during the late 70s through mid to late 80s, I had Midnite queens. I would always requeen all of my colonies end of August first of September. By doing this, I felt better queens were available this time of year, no worry concerning availability, and you had a young virilous queen laying to get you through the winters, and a good start next spring. Any queens that showed to be defective, you still had time to requeen before next years honey flow. Also, I figured this reduced swarming as the theory back then was that older queens were more inclined to swarm. Don't recall that I ever had any swarms but Midnites (hybrid Caucasians) were known for their low swarm tendency.

Danny


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

jean-marc said:


> Keith , what kind of dose do you give them and how is it applied? kill queens and not brood.Jean-Marcd


JM, I use 95% for queen killing, 75-85 degrees works well, Also, you will kill some young bees but thats about it. Two loads works best about 12 hours apart, two -three paper towl works well and is cheap.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Keith:

So if I got it right, you give them 3 paper towels worth of 95% formic. Am I to assume that a paper towel holds 30 ml or a shot glass. That would mean about 90 ml given twice about 12 hours apart if I got it right.

Who sells 95% formic?

Jean-Marc

P.S.- Thanks for the info, very very valuable to me and others I suppose.


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## Gene Weitzel (Dec 6, 2005)

*Re: Response to Gene's post*



DRUR said:


> Gene:
> Thanks for sharing some of your management techniques. I have a few more questions for you though.
> 
> 1. For those queens not requeened, what is their propensity to swarm next spring.
> ...


Danny:

1. For the most part, they don't seem to have much propensity to swarm. I think when I insert the empty deep and move the medium to the top early in the spring (the timing is fairly critical), it seems to put them in establishment mode. As the brood emerges from the top super, they fill it with nectar. As soon as the super is filled, I checkerboard it with either foundationless frames (for comb honey) or frames of empty comb, this seems to keep them busy rebuilding their honey stores during swarm season. Once you have gotten them distracted enough and past the reproductive cutoff, they seem to have lost interest in swarming and go about the business of building up stores. Then, for the most part, I can just keep stacking on empty supers.

2. I have not really noticed much difference between the two, but then since I don't mark my queens, I have no way of knowing if the older queens have been superseded. So far, I have had a very small percentage of dinks, and they seem to come pretty evenly from both categories of hives.

Last year I did not have quite enough mediums to configure all the splits as story and a half. I overwintered several in single deeps. I did have problems with these wanting to swarm. It did not seem to matter if they were the old queen or the new queen. When I added the second deep, they tended to store a lot of honey in the top of it making it difficult to break up the "honey cap" on the brood nest. When I put an empty super on top, they tended to ignore filling it in favor of swarm preparations. I gave up on a honey crop from these hives and used them as cell builders for this years batch of queens. That actually worked out quite well for me.


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## DRUR (May 24, 2009)

Gene:
Thanks for sharing the information.

Danny


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

jean-marc said:


> Keith:
> 
> So if I got it right, you give them 3 paper towels worth of 95% formic. Am I to assume that a paper towel holds 30 ml or a shot glass. That would mean about 90 ml given twice about 12 hours apart if I got it right.
> 
> ...


JM, Maybe not 90 ml but closer to two sixty ml shots. JM, I get my 95% formic here in Calif, ask your supplier.

I just work the brood even on both boxes and then give them two rounds of formic wait a day and split them.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Keith:

Sounds a like a pretty good plan. Saves a lot of time trying to find the old queen. This way you can do volume. Even if you get 80% mating , from 100 you get 160 after splitting first. Keeps your numbers up, varroa down and young queens for the upcoming seaswon.

Jean-Marc


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

jean-marc said:


> This way you can do volume. Jean-Marc


I feel the need for speed. LOL


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