# My Requeening strategy - Am I crazy?



## dbolt (Jun 15, 2005)

Believe me from past experience while moving hives at night i had one tip over on a trailer. You don't even think about doing any manipulation after dark. It is much worse than a rainy cold day. good luck


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>1. Move the brood up to the top of the hive (I feel sure the queen is there).

Why not just pull it off the hive and put it on it the beeescape on it's own bottom board and not have to deal with the rest of them? I'd split it all up into as many "hive" as you have boxes and then try to find her.

>2. Put a Bee Escape below the brood, to slowly empty the brood.

The bees will NOT leave brood. They simply won't.

>3. Put a Queen excluder below the Bee Escape, so that the Queen will be able to leave the brood, and she can go through the Bee Escape?

She can but she won't and the nurse bees won't.

>4. Put another Bee Ecape below the Queen Excluder, so that I will be able to remove the empty brood

There will be no empty brood.

> find and kill the queen without the bees coming out of the hive.

Won't happen.

>5. Put a fume board on top of the Brood, which should force all the bees out of the brood.

THAT might get them out of the brood. But I've never used fume boards so I can't say for sure.

>Also, I want to do all of this at night

REALLY BAD IDEA!!!!

>since the agressive bees won't sting me so badly in the dark (I hope).

Wrong. They will be MORE agressive, MORE prone to crawl, and MORE prone to sting in the dark. Don't do it.

> The thought of searching frame by frame for the queen while thousands of African bees try to kill me is not a fun thought.

I learned to do this from bees from Texas.









Get a bottom and a lid (makshift will do) for every box. Put every box on it's own bottom with a lid. Put an empty box at the old location. The mean bees are mostly field bees and they will return to the old location, where you KNOW the queen is not.

The rest are now just ten frame "hives" with no field bees. MUCH less bees to face. Look for the one with the most bees (or if you noticed, the one with the brood) and look through it. You'll be AMAZED how much nicer the nurse bees in a one box hive are compared to the field bees in a huge booming hive.

If the ten frame box with brood is still too hot, put half the frames in another box and put the lids back on. After they calm down look through each of them.

Divide and conquer.


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

I wouldn't mess with any bees in the dark, baaaad idea. Do as MB suggests, it's the most logical plan for dealing with HOT hives.


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## george dilley (Sep 5, 2005)

down here with a real hot hive we break it down into smaller hives and increase numbers with more queens they seem to accept queens in smaller groups better than in a large hive


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## Hillside (Jul 12, 2004)

I have no idea if you're crazy, but your plan sounds a little shakey.

Small colonies are much easier to work than large colonies and tiny colonies are the easiest. Use Michael's method. It'll work. 

I especially like his idea of putting an empty box at the old location for the field bees. I wonder if you could let the field bees sit for a couple of days, put in a caged queen and and end up with a requeened split. Then add a few young bees as necessary.

If the bees are too mean to break the hive down into smaller units, wear a few layers of clothes under your suit so they can't sting through. It'll be really hot in the suit, but you only need to keep it on until you get the hive bodies split up and on their own bottoms. Then let the whole mess settle down before you go back with less armor.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Hill: Field bees are less likely to excepta new queen.


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## wayacoyote (Nov 3, 2003)

I had the same experience as dbolt. The hive tipped over, my sister was trapped in the truck without protection to help me, and I suffered only a near-100 stings before setting things right. Then had to walk a quarter mile before getting into the truck as the bees followed me.

And that was an unaggressive hive. 

I do some tasks after dark, but am much better prepared. 

Waya


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## Tors (Jan 6, 2006)

I put a crown board with bee escape beneath the top box which was full of honey. It would normally empty in 24 hours or so. But no luck still full of bees, when I opened it up again 3 days later I found a patch of drone brood the size of a saucer. MB is right. 

Alex King (K142)


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I especially like his idea of putting an empty box at the old location for the field bees.

This makes a HUGE differnece when all the field bees are out of the boxes you're going through you've eliminated half of the bees and it's the grouchier half. You KNOW the queen isn't at the old location.

>I wonder if you could let the field bees sit for a couple of days, put in a caged queen and and end up with a requeened split. Then add a few young bees as necessary.

You can. It works sometimes. But the field bees are harder to requeen as are hot bees. I'd take a frame of emerging brood and a push in cage and put that in the "field bee" hive.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

In all of this, don't be afriad to walk away and let them settle down from time to time. And don't be afraid to walk away so YOU can settle down from time to time. It's a bit stressful having all those bees trying to kill you.


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## Patrick Scannell (Jul 3, 2004)

Instead of putting an empty box at the old location, how about putting a gentle nuc with a laying queen in a box there and filling it out with comb as required?

Would the returning aggressive field bees kill the new queen, or would they perhaps adopt her more gentle demeanor?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Would the returning aggressive field bees kill the new queen, or would they perhaps adopt her more gentle demeanor? 

That's a lot of returning field bees. Yes I'd be afraid they would ball the queen. I might try that formulat except with the nuc above a double screen board where they can't get to her and let them get used to her smell and figure out they are queenless.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

MB: do you jsut place the old box directly on top of the hive with no other bees in it?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>MB: do you jsut place the old box directly on top of the hive with no other bees in it?

Is this in the context of the previous response to putting a nuc on top of the old location? I'd put an empty box (probably some drawn comb and maybe a few frames of honey in it) on the old location for the field bees to return to. Then I'm talking about putting a double screen board on top of that. Then I'm talking about a ten frame nuc on top of them (yes a regular ten frame box but with five frames of bees and some empty foundation or whatever for the other five and a queen).

The returning field bees can smell the new queen and cant' smell theirs because she's gone.


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## wayacoyote (Nov 3, 2003)

Michael,
The prescription sounds great, but I may have gotten lost on this point:

> Then I'm talking about putting a double screen board on top of that. 
> The returning field bees can smell the new queen and cant' smell theirs because she's gone.

If a double screen is used, the bees to be requeened won't be able to "communicate" with the nuc above the screen. As I'm familiar with it, this is a method used to separate them (As I did with the FWOF-style queen rearing, not to join them. If unable to feed one another through the screen, they can't receive the new queen's pheromones. 
If a Single screen is used instead (say one taped over a inner cover's hole so little space for fighting through the screen) then they Can receive the pheromones without getting to the queen to ball her.
I could be wrong in all this.
Waya


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

They fight through a single screen and don't through a double. I would just leave them on a double for a little while. If you wanted to go to a single then just before a newspaper combine you could.


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## wayacoyote (Nov 3, 2003)

Ah, the ol' newspaper combine. That should satisfy the issue just fine. I follow you now.
Waya


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## wayacoyote (Nov 3, 2003)

ah, the ol' newpaper trick. That should solve the issue. Thanks, Waya


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