# Queen introduction thought



## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

If you do the "Run the virgin in" method, I thought of something. If the virgin and queen should get in a fight, who do you think would win? The old queen is swollen with eggs and is in no shape to have a battle to the death.

Any thoughts?

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Sol Parker
Southern Oregon Apiaries
http://www.allnaturalhoney.com


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

A lot of people do the virgin introduction method. Most have noted a lot of two queen hives. My guess is the old queen won't notice or care and the bees will eventually (probably not until the honey season is ending) get rid of the old queen, simply because she doesn't make as much QMP. It goes down like a supercedure.

I doubt they will fight. A laying queen, I think will.


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## Clayton (Dec 8, 2000)

It is usually the bees who will kill one or the other. As MB say though there will often be two queens till one disappears.


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## briancady413 (Dec 8, 2003)

I guess this is the opposite approach, involving the most observation: http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/queenintro.html#ak_st_jd 

It seemed thoughtful, but I haven't raised bees much. What do you think?

Brian Cady


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

There is a world of difference between introducing an umated virgin queen and a mated queen (the kind you usually buy through the mail). The bees response to the two is entirely different. I think Dave Cushman is a very experienced beekeeper and is sharing a variety of methods. I usually have little trouble with requeening by the usual methods of disposing of the old queen, putting the queen cage in the hive and letting the bees get used to her. After a couple of days they have either eaten throught he candy, if there is some, or I release her. The problem hives are the ones with laying workers. The thing about the virgin queen methods is you usually don't bother to get rid of the old queen, which is a real labor saver. If you did that with a mated queen they would simply kill the new queen and keep the old one.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I should also say, that doing methods that are very labor intensive are probably not worth it when you buy queens in bulk for $6 to requeen or you raised your own. But when you have a troublesome hive or especially when you have a breeder queen that cost you $250 then it is probably well worth any insurance you can get.


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## Hook (Jun 2, 2002)

I have used both methods as well. The run in virgin method is by far, less time consuming. If I bought queens, and had something to lose, I would use the cage/disposal method. But the idea is, that the new queen is a virgin, hence it was probably raised by you or your bees. I never see anybody sell virgin queens. Even if you could buy one, there is always a risk of her loss during her mating flights. She could be eaten, lose her sense of direction, get hit by a car, ect. I like the run in method because it is less time consuming, and the queen mates with the bees that survive in your area.

Brother Adam's book, link posted in this forum and directory, is very enlightening. He spent alot of time raising queens, and although some of it is rather deep, it has a ton of info. There are alot of things I already thought of, but also alot of things I have not, or were just standing out in front of me, and I am too stupid to grasp it. All research, and an open mind to try different things can be very rewarding. I look at various writings, get my hands dirty with my girls, then form opinions. I think too many people take one piece of literature as law, and never explore "different" ideas. I think alot of people are trying different things, to solve the mite/shb problems we face. Only through exploration shall we find the answers we seek. Man, I sound like some Kung Fu master now! Anyway, like I have said in the past, live and learn.

Just my opinion.......

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Dale Richards
Dal-Col Apiaries
Drums, PA

[This message has been edited by Hook (edited December 15, 2003).]


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## WineMan (May 16, 2003)

With mated queens, i almost always us jz/bz cages. Bank bars of them upon arrival from the mail to be cared for and use them up over a couple of days. A number of suppliers ship in the jz/bz cage and battery box but if they dont i just take the queen from one cage and put her in a jz/bz.

Probably due to being in the midwest rather than the west, most folks i know use the ripe queen cell method over the virgin technique. There are some plus and minuses with both ways....guess it just depends what works best for you.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Does the difference in race make the bees treat the virgins any differently?


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## Clayton (Dec 8, 2000)

I'm only guessing here but I think mostly with the russian queens as there phermones are different. I think you may have a difficult time introducing them via virgin method, but that is only my guess Sol.

Clay


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## Hillbillynursery (Nov 13, 2003)

Just a thought, would running the virgin queen in make for a better harvest? Since the old queen and the new queen are laying in the same nest this should greatly improve the size of the hive. Would this result in nearly the same thing as a double queen colony.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

I have thought of this as well, but having no experience in such things, I really dont know, but you would think it would speed things up a bit, at least I hope it would and that would add to the attractiveness of this idea.

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Sol Parker
Southern Oregon Apiaries
http://www.allnaturalhoney.com


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Just a thought, would running the virgin queen in make for a better harvest? Since the old queen and the new queen are laying in the same nest this should greatly improve the size of the hive. Would this result in nearly the same thing as a double queen colony.

That depends on the timing.
http://www.phy.ilstu.edu/~wenning/russia/Early-Age_Foraging.htm 

The point of the Killian method or whatever you want to call the cut down method, is that, just before the honey flow, you take out most if not all of the open brood and put it in a seperate hive with just enough bees to take care of it and shake all the rest of the bees into the parent hive and leave the "parent" with nothing but the capped brood. This frees up an lot of bees to gather the nectar. Nurse bees are not gathering nectar, so an increase in open brood ties up potential harvesters and uses up resources and ties up pollen collectors right when you need them to be gathering honey.

Think of it this way, you want the hive to raise foragers FOR the harvest not DURING the harvest. If the hive rasies a lot of foragers DURING the harvest it not only ties up resources, but these bees emerge just in time to eat up all of the resources that were gathered and NOT in time to gather them.

So.... if you come up with a two queen hive at least three weeks or more BEFORE the honey flow you're raising bees that can gather it. If you raise them DURING or AFTER the honey flow they will not help with the harvest of honey, they will just eat it.

I believe a lot of the differences noted between really productive hives and poor producers is simply a matter of the luck of the timing of things. If things happen when the bees expected it to, then they are very productive. If the nectar flow is early or late, they are not productive.


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## Hook (Jun 2, 2002)

>> Does the difference in race make the bees treat the virgins any differently?

They will smell differently like Clay stated. I swapped queens with Jim on this forum, and his was an Italian/Carnolian cross. I used the cage method to introduce her, and put her into my SMR/Carnolian hive, and they wanted no parts of her. The younger bees accapted her, but the older ones, at least I think, tried to raise their own queen in another chamber. It was funny, because she was laying up a storm in the one box, and the other had the other queens brood, and eggs, and they wanted her type queen.

This was a larger hive, 3 deeps and a super I think, and it was between flows. I did get acceptance, but I had to keep moving her brood throughout the hive, and finally things just took off. But I figured it was due to the pheromones being different. I think it is cool how bees react to things like that. In the fall, she was still there, and things looked good. 



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Dale Richards
Dal-Col Apiaries
Drums, PA


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## Hillbillynursery (Nov 13, 2003)

My earlier post was just a thought and might work if you have a later main flow. Here our main flows are early(tulip popular) and late(wild flower) with a slow but continual flow thru mid summer. I had never read the link you posted before but was planning something simular. I got the idea from The Hive and the Honeybee in the comb honey section. I do not remember who they gave credit to for the method as the methods are what I needed to remember. They did say to remove the uncapped brood but to leave the queen free to lay. I am planning on making splits this spring. If both my hives make it thru the winter I will pull enough uncapped brood from both of them as soon as I see the populars blooming to make up another hive or maybe 2 depending on the strength of the hives. From these 2 hives I hope to get 2 TBHs and 4 more langs up to strength by fall for winter. The only chance I see of getting any honey for me is the tulip popular flow.

BTW I loved the quote at the bottom of that link.

¡ÝIf you keep honey bees for enjoyment, pursue the aspect of beekeeping you like the best.¡Ü 

Steve Taber

I am keeping bees for pleasure and this fits me well. This is also why I am trying TBHs. If they do good for me I will keep them around. If they do not them I am out a little wood and time. Since money is so tight the TBHs may be all I can expand this year and have enough supers( another plan is use all medium boxes because of weight).


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