# Who Re-Queens After the Summer Solstice?



## BeeAttitudes (Dec 6, 2014)

I'm curious how common it is to re-queen your hives after the summer solstice? From what I've read, a queen born after the solstice will lay better than the old queen up through fall which translates into a higher population going into winter and a better start the following spring. Has this been your experience?

I would like to hear about your experiences re-queening hives in early July (which is after the main flow in my area).


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## teatimetony (Jul 23, 2013)

best part about this is going queen-less for a week. it will kill off most of you mite population. i am going to be doing this this year.


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

teatimetony said:


> best part about this is going queen-less for a week. it will kill off most of you mite population. i am going to be doing this this year.


I encourage you to study up on mites if you really believe what you posted to be true.


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## stan.vick (Dec 19, 2010)

I like to make splits to increase my numbers after the solstice, but have found the heat makes it hard to do, this year I plan to put them in the shade and see how they do. I have been running all my hives in full sun because it helps very much with the SHB problem. I think a cut-down will not survive the SHB at that time of year, so I plan to do equal splits. I do find the queens made at that time seem to lay as if it's spring time. I will only put the queenless half in the shade, the queen-right half should do alright in the heat.JMO


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## orthoman (Feb 23, 2013)

I have been reading the OTS method of queen rearing and his theory is that that post solstice queens keep up production longer. I don't know if it is fact or not but I would like to believe it. I would love to see some research to verify the mites all going into the cells just before capping and that die. I would also like to see some research that post-solstice queens keep producing longer into fall. 

I did make a few nucs in late July last year - 5 total - letting four of the five make their own queens. I wasn't sure if it was too late to do this but they all over wintered well in 5 over 5 configuration. Not sure if it was just luck or if there was a big enough brood break to knock down the mites. By contrast, I lost my bigger hives even though I treated them. I didn't treat the nucs until late winter (late Feb.) and treated them with oxalic acid vapor.

This next year, I will try the on the spot technique pretty much as directed and see what happens.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Once you get big enough, you'll probably consider keeping a queen bank full-time, year-'round, buying queens from Hawai'i of necessary. Using an IPM program, a target date for a harsh mite treatment is August 15 (Northern Hemisphere). This means that you will, indeed, be re-queening some of the colonies after the solstice, as some treatmets, such as formic acid, are hard on queens.

Re-queening time is an opportunitu to upgrade your apiary's genetics - do try to get some decent stock.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

So nature sends out all those swarms in April and May and June, and forces the parent colonies to raise their new queens before the solstice, thus re-queening with inferior queens? I find this one hard to believe.


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## cana (Mar 7, 2012)

i with Michael Palmer my best queens come in april and may


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I think the after solstice thing is to try to get colonies untreated for mites to outbreed the mites and get some qood quality winter bees. A colony not damaged by mites probably does fine on its own.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Michael Palmer said:


> So nature sends out all those swarms in April and May and June, and forces the parent colonies to raise their new queens before the solstice, thus re-queening with inferior queens? I find this one hard to believe.


If it is good enough for the Druids, it is good enough for the bees.


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## tsmullins (Feb 17, 2011)

BeeAttitudes said:


> I would like to hear about your experiences re-queening hives in early July (which is after the main flow in my area).


We have had good success overwintering nucs started in mid to late July. We typically start our queen rearing process July 4th. This is not an idea we came up with. It is based on Mr. Palmer's nuc system and Mel's theories.

Shane


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## Northwest PA Beekeeper (Mar 28, 2012)

I have to agree with Michael Palmer - so all the swarms that go feral (not kept by beekeepers and not in movable frames) are all inferior? 

By those standards - apparently any feral bees out there die every single year. A swarm moves into a hollow tree and a beekeeper captures a swarm. The swarm is left up to it's devices to get it's own food while the swarm the beekeeper has is being fed syrup.

In the Fall, the beekeeper weighs his hive to make sure they have enough honey. In nature - it's survival of he fittest - if the hollow tree bees don't make enough they die. The beekeeper also treats his bees for mites - and then wraps his hives. In the wild, nobody treats for mites and nobody wraps the hollow tree.

Come Spring, the beekeeper goes out to check his hive and finds it's dead. "It was a long, cold, hard winter and the mites must have got the better of them." Check that hollow tree - and chances are very good the bees are fine and doing well.


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## lucasjack83 (Jun 12, 2013)

This is a very interesting discussion.. I guess my question would be how come many of you talk about overwintering nucs. I've never had to. I started a nuc in july of last year. Moved her into deep by august and she's two deeps of brood right now. Just seems like you should be able to fully populate a hive late and still fill some supers, especially you folks in the mid-atlantic/southeast.

To kind of answer the question. It would essentially be very similar to starting a nuc, except you would have a full population to work with. I think the prospect is very good. 

one last thing. The best hive I had last year produced four mediums and two shallows of honey on top of two deep brood chambers. She was a swarm I caught the previous year in July.


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## tsmullins (Feb 17, 2011)

lucasjack83 said:


> The best hive I had last year produced four mediums and two shallows of honey on top of two deep brood chambers. She was a swarm I caught the previous year in July.


We just don't have those kind of flows in SW VA. Wish we did, but we simply don't. If we harvest 40 pounds per have, that is good. Our best colony produced two ten frame mediums last year. I was very thankful.

We usually have a great spring, when colonies are building up. Sourwood ends around the first week of July. Then hives maintain until fall. Sometimes we have a good aster/goldenrod (my fav honey). Most years we don't have a good fall. Haven't had a good sourwood crop in several years.

We make nucs out of hives that didn't produce a honey surplus. Why take a chance of losing the entire colony when we can make two or three or more strong nucs? These nucs tend to be healthy and overwinter well. 

Shane


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## rmaxwell (Apr 23, 2014)

I raised an after solstice queen last year with Carni's just to see how difficult it would be. The old queen shut down for the summer. The new queen kept raising brood through the summer. Could that be part of why folks say they perform better?


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## orthoman (Feb 23, 2013)

Yeah, I see you point. However, I don't recall any claims of inferior vs superior quality to any of the queens. As I recall, the assertion is that post solstice queens lay longer into the fall -- would still like to see some research on this as I don't have any experience or observation of this.


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## tsmullins (Feb 17, 2011)

orthoman said:


> As I recall, the assertion is that post solstice queens lay longer into the fall -- would still like to see some research on this as I don't have any experience or observation of this.


While I believe this to be true, I have not conducted experiments to document this. I will/can this fall.

Shane


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## stan.vick (Dec 19, 2010)

Michael Palmer said:


> So nature sends out all those swarms in April and May and June, and forces the parent colonies to raise their new queens before the solstice, thus re-queening with inferior queens? I find this one hard to believe.


 If I implied that I do post solstice queens because they are better than spring queens, I didn't mean to. I do it because I need to increase my numbers, and have found that a new queen does lay more vigorously than a queen that is shutting down brood production, during our hot summer. ( unlike Italians my mutts will completely shut down ) sorry if I mislead anyone. As usual beekeeping is local.


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## BeeAttitudes (Dec 6, 2014)

Interesting that some have turned this into a debate if pre-solstice queens are inferior to post-solstice queens. I didn't see anyone make that claim but several are defending the pre-solstice queens anyhow, ha.

The point I'm interested in is if a post-solstice queen will lay better than the legacy queen going into the fall where there will be a better over-wintering population of bees. In my area, a larger over-wintering population likely means a better/quicker spring buildup which is needed if you want to make honey during the short spring/summer flow which is from mid-late April through the end of June.

I guess the question of how often one should re-queen is related to this discussion. I've read that a post-solstice queen does very well the following spring. If you buy into this theory, should the queen be replaced every year after the solstice? Every other year? Seems you would need to replace the queen each year if you want to take advantage of the strong fall egg laying. Is there any downside to re-queening every year in July?


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## stan.vick (Dec 19, 2010)

I like for my strong spring colonies to shut down in summer, it saves on sugar cost, gives me a chance to do an OAV treatment when broodless if needed, the queen will start raising the winter bees in the fall, and if not too old will do a good job the next spring, it is the new colonies that need to increase population fast to protect them from pest and to raise winter bees, an old queen with a cut-down will not do that here in July. A short explanation is, if they are not producing honey, I want them to be producing new colonies.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

Andrew Dewey said:


> I encourage you to study up on mites if you really believe what you posted to be true.


Andrew, the hypothosis is sound. You have a hive full of bees with _no capped brood_ All of the mites in the colony are in the adult state (presumably gravid) and looking for a place to lay eggs. Suddenly, eight days after the queen starts to lay there is brood being capped and massive numbers mites move to feed and lay eggs. A good portion of them over-crowding the cell and killing the pupa by devouring all of it's hemolymph, hence large amounts of mites die knocking the population down to levels that the bees can better control. 

I'm not arguing for or against but I'm curious what part of that scenario you don't agree with.

If I'm remembering correclty Mel has done this and had some pictures of brood with 10+ mites in each cell.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

thehackleguy said:


> Andrew, the hypothosis is sound. You have a hive full of bees with _no capped brood_ All of the mites in the colony are in the adult state (presumably gravid) and looking for a place to lay eggs. Suddenly, eight days after the queen starts to lay there is brood being capped and massive numbers mites move to feed and lay eggs. A good portion of them over-crowding the cell and killing the pupa by devouring all of it's hemolymph, hence large amounts of mites die knocking the population down to levels that the bees can better control.
> 
> I'm not arguing for or against but I'm curious what part of that scenario you don't agree with.


That new queen will have a couple frames laid up quick, I think all those mites will find happy homes just fine. I've made late splits, they'll mite out quick if you don't treat them, but it also depends on how infested the parent colony is. As for the Solstice issue.... we all know new queens tend to be more vigorous, especially once they start laying, so what's this have to do with the magic of the Solstice?? It might signify that unwritten cut off date to get good mating perhaps, but any new queen made in summer should brood up heavily the rest of they year in my opinion.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

JRG13 said:


> That new queen will have a couple frames laid up quick, I think all those mites will find happy homes just fine. I've made late splits, they'll mite out quick if you don't treat them, but it also depends on how infested the parent colony is. As for the


Maybe they will...or maybe they won't (don't know myself). However, I do know that Mel Disselkoen does not treat for mites, except with a brood break and has better than average overwintering survival. I don't have the book or lecture notes sitting in front of me, but I believe that he has a brood break in every hive every year.


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## GarfieldBeek (Jan 12, 2015)

Northwest PA Beekeeper said:


> I have to agree with Michael Palmer - so all the swarms that go feral (not kept by beekeepers and not in movable frames) are all inferior?
> 
> By those standards - apparently any feral bees out there die every single year. A swarm moves into a hollow tree and a beekeeper captures a swarm. The swarm is left up to it's devices to get it's own food while the swarm the beekeeper has is being fed syrup.
> 
> ...


I know 4 bee trees that had bees for decades near me that you can go check. They are all now silent.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

Just to be clear, I don't represent Mel Disselkoen in any way! (I don't want to speak for him) I've just read the book and attended a lecture. I'm just curious since some beekeepers seem to want to dispute what he teaches, what they think is a better method. There are many roads that lead to Rome!....I'm just trying to find the right one for me 

GarfieldBeek, your not the first person I've heard say that same thing.


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

thehackleguy said:


> Andrew, the hypothosis is sound. You have a hive full of bees with _no capped brood_ All of the mites in the colony are in the adult state (presumably gravid) and looking for a place to lay eggs. Suddenly, eight days after the queen starts to lay there is brood being capped and massive numbers mites move to feed and lay eggs. A good portion of them over-crowding the cell and killing the pupa by devouring all of it's hemolymph, hence large amounts of mites die knocking the population down to levels that the bees can better control.
> 
> I'm not arguing for or against but I'm curious what part of that scenario you don't agree with.
> 
> If I'm remembering correclty Mel has done this and had some pictures of brood with 10+ mites in each cell.


The first poster on this topic sounded to me like they were repeating the mantra "brood break" without understanding it.

I have no holes to poke in the theory except that at least in my neck of the woods I doubt the mites would rush into the brood cells as you describe. 10 mites in a cell is a huge number! Mites, after all survive the winter quite nicely.

If the technique works - great. I suspect that if it works it will work as a control and not a treatment (Control being part of the solution, treatment - going for the goal line). For most effective use I see brood breaks combined with drone trapping or if one is into treatments applying something once the bulk of the mites are phoretic. More than anything, while I have asked on BeeSpource previously if anyone knows of any scientific efforts at assessing brood break effectiveness, all we hear is the theory seems sound and I know someone who did it with good success. Anecdotal.

I have some concerns about timing. While I haven't focused on the matter, it seems to me that during our relatively short season in Maine there isn't a good time to halt the production of bees.

I'd love for brood breaks to be another tool to use against Varroa. However, I'm not going to put my operation at risk by *relying* on it before it is further explored.


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## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

Andrew Dewey said:


> I have some concerns about timing. While I haven't focused on the matter, *it seems to me that during our relatively short season in Maine there isn't a good time to halt the production of bees*.
> 
> I'd love for brood breaks to be another tool to use against Varroa. However, I'm not going to put my operation at risk by relying on it before it is further explored.


One of my hives of Carnis superceded two or three times last year, the last time being somewhere around August (I think). They still went into Winter with a good population, and did quite well. I unwrapped that hive this week and dug deep into it- they have brooded up nicely in the top deep but the bottom is mostly empty, inspection of those frames revealed a lot of mite frass.

So, my interpretation of that, is that brood breaks are insufficient for controlling V.D. (ooh, I'm just so punny today).

I have not yet swapped in the screened bottoms and sticky boards, so I don't have a count yet to confirm.

Further interpretation is that it *is* possible to get a queen mated and laying up well in spite of being rather late in the season, at least here where I have a very nice Goldenrod flow Sept-Oct. IIRC, I even pulled a box or two of honey off of them. Unfortunately, I had terrible trouble with other hives, particularly the Italians, and even introducing mated (purchased) queens did not go all that well, and I had to put most of the boxes of honey produced by Carni hives onto the Italian hives to get them through the Winter (the ones that survived)*.

*(Because of my work schedule, I was very late with my Winter preps and was out wrapping at 11pm at only 5 above zero with a stiff wind. I'm fairly sure that this was a direct cause of the loss of some Italian hives, it was just too cold to be opening them up to put in the moisture boards and pull the fumagilin baggies. The Carni hives apparently were not affected so badly and survived that bit of abuse. I'm beginning to think that Carnis are the way to go here. I did have some Italian hives that made it, but they were all badly hit with dysentery, the Carnis showed no sign of it.)


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

"_ You have a hive full of bees with no capped brood All of the mites in the colony are in the adult state (presumably gravid) and looking for a place to lay eggs. Suddenly, eight days after the queen starts to lay there is brood being capped and massive numbers mites move to feed and lay eggs. A good portion of them over-crowding the cell and killing the pupa by devouring all of it's hemolymph, hence large amounts of mites die knocking the population down to levels that the bees can better control. _"

Sounds like extreme wishful speculation. Is there any evidence to support this theory? Anyone ever examine comb to find significant numbers of dead larvae in cells with lots of dead mites after such a brood break?


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## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

I reared my own queens for a few years, back in the '90s. I didn't intentionally rear them after the solstice, it just turned out that way. 

I didn't see much difference. They were good (the ones that made it), but not noticeably better. I couldn't get much beyond ~ 65% mated-laying queens. The cost effectiveness didn't match the mail order queens _of the day_, as I had hoped. 

Here along the front range, early queen rearing is a crap shoot - look at the forecast this week - possible snow & freezing temps forecast for mid-May (this weekend). & Look at all the rain the swarm queens would have had to contend with for the past week. This is the traditional peak swarm week around here.

It might be wise to take that into consideration if you are planning to try it around Denver. Start multiple batches and hope for a break. IIRC, my early June queens had a poorer mating success ratio. Later in June they did a bit better. Back then the Monsoons sometimes came right about then - still a crap shoot! I won't let that stop me.

Good luck!


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

Andrew Dewey said:


> The first poster on this topic sounded to me like they were repeating the mantra "brood break" without understanding it.
> 
> I have no holes to poke in the theory except that at least in my neck of the woods I doubt the mites would rush into the brood cells as you describe. 10 mites in a cell is a huge number! Mites, after all survive the winter quite nicely.
> 
> ...


That makes sense to me:thumbsup:



shinbone said:


> " Is there any evidence to support this theory? Anyone ever examine comb to find significant numbers of dead larvae in cells with lots of dead mites after such a brood break?


Yes, and yes. This is not my information or theory, but you can buy the book and read it yourself if you like (more reliable that way any way). http://www.mdasplitter.com/buy-book.php

I'm just trying to sift through all of the different information and find a system that works for me. Mel's system works great for him and I don't live to far from his location so I'm very interested to see how it works. I find it odd that beekeepers that don't use a particular system think it is somehow a bad system when they have not tried it. But it is like that in most of the world I guess, everyone wants to be an expert.


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## BeeAttitudes (Dec 6, 2014)

Seems this thread has turned into a discussion of the value of brood breaks. Not necessarily bad or unrelated, but not what I was wondering about.

So how about assuming we are purchasing a mated queen to re-queen the first part of July so there will be no brood break. Typically, would a new queen lay better in the late fall than an older queen who laid great the previous spring?

This prompts two other questions: 1)When is the best time of year to re-queen a hive? 2) How often should a queen be replaced?.....every year?.......every other year?......only when under-performing?......or when?


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

BeeAttitudes said:


> This prompts two other questions: 1)When is the best time of year to re-queen a hive? 2) How often should a queen be replaced?.....every year?.......every other year?......only when under-performing?......or when?


After a few years of keeping bees, and asking beekeepers questions, we've realized that the humor of 'ask 3 beekeepers, get 3 different answers' eventually wears off, and we started looking for other ways to answer questions at times, my favorite way is to 'ask my bees'. After we moved, we asked our bees about flow patterns in the new home by putting on colony on a scale, then measuring how much they are bringing in, and when. For your two questions, it's not hard to 'ask my bees'.

1) When? Our bees tend to make cells during the early flow, ie swarm season. According to what they show us, that's the ideal time to requeen, it's when they do it naturally. Another favorite time for them to make cells, is during August, if a colony hasn't superceded yet this year, that's when they do it. From that, I take the answer as 'during spring flow, or during fall flow' for when is a good time to requeen.

2) How often? Good healthy colonies tend to swarm every year, and the swarm will usually supercede some time after swarming. Far more often than not, a strong healthy colony will be headed by this years post swarm queen, or last years queen who left with the swarm, but gets replaced after the swarm is settled in to a new home. By fall, most of them are headed by a queen from this year if I leave them to their own devices.

I'm not talking now about the few exceptions, these are just the generalities we have seen with our bees over time. Most colonies will follow this trend if I dont do something to disrupt them.

I'm sure lots of folks wiill have different answers, they have different bees in far different locations, probably being worked differently too. These are the answers I get, from my bees, in my location.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Andrew Dewey said:


> I'd love for brood breaks to be another tool to use against Varroa. However, I'm not going to put my operation at risk by *relying* on it before it is further explored.


I think a proper brood break more or less defeats the purpose of having bee hives, unless it's perfectly timed. Just simple numbers, assume the population is good, so right around 50,000 bees when you start the break with a stable run rate of the queen laying 1000 eggs a day. It will take 24 days from that starting point to truely reach broodless. Over that 24 days (time it takes the last drone to emerge) there are no eggs laid, and the bees are still dying off at a rate of 1000 a day. Population appears relatively stable, because bees are still emerging every day, but no eggs are being laid.

Now the queen starts laying again. Bees are still dying off at the rate of 1000 a day, but no new bees are emerging, and no workers will emerge for the next 20 days. By the time the first new worker emerges, that 50,000 is down to 30,000, and they are all old bees, and there is a very good chance half of the brood now capped or open is not well fed, because bees of the wrong age have been tending them.

If you aren't looking for a decent honey crop off the hive, or you can perfectly time the brood break to maximize foragers during a short and intense flow intending to knock down bee population after that flow, then it may be a viable strategy. But other than those two situations, a brood break is a perfect way to decimate the bee population leading into the later part of the season, and almost guarantee that first brood round after the break, has mites in every cell. Yes, it has slowed down mite reproduction, but it's slowed down bee reproduction by an equal amount, so I dont see the gain. The numbers of mites may be down, but the ratio of mites to bees has not changed at all because the number of bees is down just as sharply.

A mite drop of 3 or 4 from a population of 20,000 bees is NOT the same as a mite drop of 3 or 4 from a population of 50,000 bees.

I think the brood break does as much or more damage to the bees as it does to the mites, so it's not a viable way of dealing with mites at all. It's kinda like throwing the kitty in the fire to kill fleas. Sure, that kills the fleas, but it kills the kitty too, a rather drastic and undesired consequence.


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## BjornH (Nov 8, 2013)

For the varroa part, i use the means we have in our disposal. But, the thing Mr Disselkoen gave me ( BMP- Before Mike Palmer) was a recipe for expanding hive numbers. I dont care for longer broodbreaks than the one between hatching queen to laying queen. But, young vigourus queens laying like mashine gun in fresh wax will always be a better over wintering hive than a second or third year hive. As long they are provided with the resources they need ( natural or 'unnatural'). I have winters so that weeds out the most of the too agressive varroa strains....Dead hive dosent raise varroa...


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

I split mine on July 10 last year and just inspected one that I have only took some frames from a couple weeks ago. I wish I had my camera with me, top to bottom, wall to wall brood! Even found that big beautiful girl working it. Finding empty cells and looked like she was just sit in it for a couple seconds and to the next.

I found my next breeder queen for sure!!!!


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

grozzie2 said:


> I think the brood break does as much or more damage to the bees as it does to the mites, so it's not a viable way of dealing with mites at all. It's kinda like throwing the kitty in the fire to kill fleas. Sure, that kills the fleas, but it kills the kitty too, a rather drastic and undesired consequence.


grozzie2,

I can't agree with you, not by my own hives (I've decided it is best to treat for mites, at least at this point) but by watching intently as others are doing it. They are using brood breaks, producing more honey than the state average, producing a lot of splits, and better than average winter survival.....why? I'm not sure but it is working and has been for a substantial number of years. Maybe it is simply that I'm in a great location.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

grozzie2 said:


> I think the brood break does as much or more damage to the bees as it does to the mites, so it's not a viable way of dealing with mites at all. It's kinda like throwing the kitty in the fire to kill fleas. Sure, that kills the fleas, but it kills the kitty too, a rather drastic and undesired consequence.


I agree. Nothing I would do up here on the northern border with our short season.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

thehackleguy said:


> I find it odd that beekeepers that don't use a particular system think it is somehow a bad system when they have not tried it. But it is like that in most of the world I guess, everyone wants to be an expert.


If you think being skeptical of, and asking for supporting data for a method of varroa control that is widely known and widely panned is wanting to be an expert, then you are confusing "wants to be an expert" with "having common sense."

Next, you will be convinced that fogging with mineral oil will control varroa simply because you saw a video of it on Youtube.


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## Dave1958 (Mar 25, 2013)

I wanted to make queens earlier than the next couple of weeks, but I had so many loses from winter, and bees haven't built up. It takes bees to make bees. I have only one yard due to aerial spraying forced me to move out of one yard. I would like a honey crop, but sadly that seems to not be happening because it also takes bees to make honey. Bees have just been stagnant, I'm going this weekend to go through looking at drone brood to check mites. 2 plus weeks ago I found none, but it has to be something


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I did a little experiment last year in September. The queen that made it overwinter thrive this Spring.
She live with the mites all winter long and the hive still alive and producing now. Yes, a young queen will
keep on laying here and will build up earlier in the Spring time too. After this Spring, I will repeat this little
experiment again to see the long term results. So far so good with the after the solstice queen that is still laying
strong like she is just 3 months old. I got the Cordovans that will keep on laying all year long with a very mild winter here. Mites check = on demand stationary OAV set up now.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

shinbone said:


> If you think being skeptical of, and asking for supporting data for a method of varroa control that is widely known and widely panned is wanting to be an expert, then you are confusing "wants to be an expert" with "having common sense."
> 
> Next, you will be convinced that fogging with mineral oil will control varroa simply because you saw a video of it on Youtube.


I've done the reading, have you? I asked a simple question and for some insight as to why someone told someone else they didn't know what they were talking about. It was clairified and I agreed with the poster on their situation.

You on the other hand said it was "wishful thinking", dismissed it as not worthy of discussion and asked if anyone has done the research. I answered your question, yes research has been done, if you are interested in actually looking into it instead of assuming it is wrong you can buy the book, read the website. 

As far as fogging with mineral oil goes.....if someone can show me a sustainable, pesticide free, that has better than average honey production and better than average winter survival then I'm in.

*BTW, I did get a chance to go over my notes last night and during inspections of first layed capped brood after brood break up to 14 mites were counted per pupa.*


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

thehackleguy said:


> *BTW, I did get a chance to go over my notes last night and during inspections of first layed capped brood after brood break up to 14 mites were counted per pupa.*


Thanks for providing some information.

14 was the high; what was the average number of mites per cell?

Were those 14 mites all foundress mites? Or, were they 7 foundresses and 7 daughters?

Were they dead or alive?

What was the percentage of mite infestation before and after the brood break?


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

shinbone said:


> Thanks for providing some information.
> 
> 14 was the high; what was the average number of mites per cell?
> 
> ...


Buy the book and do your own research  Or better yet, book yourself a flight and come on out to Michigan for one of Mel's field days and you can see it for yourself.:thumbsup:


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Asking proponents of a mite control system questions is one way of doing research. Such conversations are one of the many benefits of a forum like Beesource. And, there is nothing wrong with not knowing the answers to the basic questions which would indicate whether the method has any promise. Good luck with it and please report back from time to time on how well it works for you.




.


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

Here is a pic of my after solstice queen and her pattern, but I have a before solstice, just as nice.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

shinbone said:


> Asking proponents of a mite control system questions is one way of doing research. Such conversations are one of the many benefits of a forum like Beesource. And, there is nothing wrong with not knowing the answers to the basic questions which would indicate whether the method has any promise. Good luck with it and please report back from time to time on how well it works for you.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Great you talked to Mel then....or are you talking about me? Because I'm still researching a system that will work for me. Which is why I asked the question to begin with.


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## BeeAttitudes (Dec 6, 2014)

Since the honey flow in our area is over basically by the end of June, re-queening in July seems to have an advantage over re-queening earlier in the spring when the hive is building up quickly. At least that's my thought. The new queen should have time to get laying really well before the fall build-up I'm hoping. Thus my questions about a "post-solstice" re-queening. It sounds promising for a good fall build-up as well as a good performing queen the following spring for honey production. In my area a fast spring build-up is needed for the short honey producing season which lasts from maybe mid-April through the end of June......so I want to avoid any disruption of the spring build-up if possible.

So if a queen should be replaced yearly (debatable, but it doesn't sound like it's a bad practice) then maybe a July replacement would be a good option for my area. Another thought is maybe a young queen is less likely to swarm. I've had experienced bee keepers tell me this is true at least so that isn't a bad thing either.

This is what I had in mind discussing so thanks to those who responded about this. grozzie2 had very relevant info. Per his comments it sounds like naturally queens are commonly replaced every year.


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

I haven't read this whole thread...(dangerous to post I know), but I have always found that requeening powerful hives (those that exist post solstice) is harder. They seem to say "thanks, but we do it ourselves" and supersede my $$$ queen. 

Also, our flow ends in July. Over the years it seems that hives accept queens better when they are growing and nectar is coming in than when they have a big hive and nothing's coming in.

If this has all been said 20 times before in this thread, I apologize.


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## BeeAttitudes (Dec 6, 2014)

Good points. Thanks beedeetee!


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

If colonies are strong enough they will swarm leaving the bees to rear a new queen pre solstice. Btu what is to say that a colony strong enough to swarm did not come from the previous years post solstice queen? A colony that fails to swarm will often supersede their queen which would be producing queens much closer if not post solstice. so the bees are as likely to produce a queen after the solstice as they are prior to it. The question is, do these queens perform better? I don't agree that the bees do everything necessarily the best that it can be done. They are raising brood for months when they could be making honey for example. They rear brood well but that is not necessarily in my best interest when what I need is honey. Why would I then assume they would rear queens at the most advantageous time of the year? They rear queens when they need them. Which by their timing generally will devastate their honey making potential. hardly what I consider the best strategy. The way I see it better queens or not is to prevent swarming at the bees chosen time. keep colonies strong for honey production. then manipulate them in what I would consider artificial swarms by splitting and let the splits produce new. incidentally post solstice queens. I put honey above reproducible the bees don't. SO basicallyl I try to switch them aroudn on teh list of priorities.


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## little55 (Aug 6, 2008)

I think a good experiment would be to take a pre solstice queen or queens and put them into nucs and see how they perform compared to post solstice queens/nucs made at the same time. I'm planning on making post harvest nucs I will make equal amounts of them and see how they perform.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

little55 said:


> I think a good experiment would be to take a pre solstice queen or queens and put them into nucs and see how they perform compared to post solstice queens/nucs made at the same time. I'm planning on making post harvest nucs I will make equal amounts of them and see how they perform.


Great idea! I am picking up three nucs next week that should have pre-solsice queens.......if they are big enough by July 1 I will split them and see how they compare also. I really just want my hives to survive and thrive so if one group does better than the other that would be awesome!


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## little55 (Aug 6, 2008)

I suspect that it could be a change in motivation for the bees. Instead of being in a hive that's fully established now they are having to re establish the broodnest in time for winter. Just speculation.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I have been experimenting on the Spring and after the summer queens for the last 2 years. 
Because this is location specific, what does well here may not be for your area. In comparison to both
the Spring and after summer queens I found out that the young queen will lay fast to build up the 
hive population. The 2 can supplement each others by providing young queens into the late Fall and the after
summer queens can carry the hive into the late of winter until Spring time again. Over here, last year, the after summer queen got mated on September. She carried the hive over winter despite the mites infestation all winter long and the EFB where as the early mated Spring queen was dead once the mites and EFB hit. This may be an isolated case just in time for my little queen bee experiments. But I hope to further test and compare the Spring and after summer queens to reach a better conclusion.
At the moment, the Spring queen is building up for the after summer queen which in turn helps with the over wintering and the
quick Spring build up as well. So this 2 cycles will supplement each others instead of just using either a Spring or an after the
solstice queen. Instead of thinking which one is better, I am thinking how the 2 can help each others to grow my hive faster. It seems to be working on my 3rd year on rearing the Spring and the after summer queens.


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

When I have seen supersedure in my hives it has typically been around the Summer Solstice. Occasionally it also happens in early autumn.

I can't say if the queens are any better, but they certainly build up a bigger population before going into winter and have a better population the next spring.

It makes sense to me to requeen after the main flow, as the honey crop is then not affected. Also the population then drops in time for the summer dearth.

It also means more resources can be given to splits and larger splits have a better chance of survival and they are less likely to need to be fed.


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## RobWok (May 18, 2011)

I had 8 hives coming out of the winter. Lost 3 - I don't treat anything, and only use feral bees. Half in shade, half in sun. The ones in sun tend to do better as a rule. One of my winter losses was 2 deep, full of honey, and they ate everything. They were a hive I bought from a friend - he was buying some "small cell VSH) and had an extra. They were bigger than all of mine and if they had made it through the winter would have been great. All that to say this - My local feral cutouts and swarms seem to go into winter about the right size to make it through. Almost every loss I've had is because the queen starts laying in January, and then we get some cold weather, and they die trying to keep that brood warm. I wrapped my hives a couple times and had zero losses. I recently had a guy cut down an old pine tree, and it had a hive in it. He cut it in pieces when the overnight low was 10 degrees, and stopped when he saw all the honey on his chainsaw. They did fine after I took them out, but the hive was a straight vertical, and had 2" or 3" of punky soft, dry wood surrounding the hive. Now, I don't know what the R value was, but let me assure you that a hive with basically 2" insulated walls, and lots of insulation above and below, is not at a disadvantage to our boxes of 3/4" dry pine. I plan on making insulating sleeves for mine this winter - mainly for the reason of the way our queens try to start building up the first time we have a warm day in January.

I also plan on raising queens in August. The hard part of doing queens in the spring is the temperature, and the lack of bees for the cell builders and the mating nucs. So much easier to do summer queen rearing. I plan on putting my nuc boxes in one big cluster - next to each other front to back, and maybe even on top of each other to build up that thermal mass when they need it.


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## BeeAttitudes (Dec 6, 2014)

Interesting thoughts. I appreciate everyone sharing your information.


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