# Queen Introduction Question



## Troy (Feb 9, 2006)

I've got queens coming tomorrow.

I went out this past weekend and found the queens I want to replace and caged them in the hive so I can find them when I need to.

I have read that I should remove the queens a day ahead of introduction so the hive is queenless for 24 hrs before introduction.

Why is that? Does in help increase introduction success? One hive is about 30 miles away and so I'd rather not make the drive 2 days in a row, but I will if I need to.


----------



## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

Troy said:


> I've got queens coming tomorrow.
> 
> I went out this past weekend and found the queens I want to replace and caged them in the hive so I can find them when I need to.
> 
> ...


Your chances for success greatly improve if they think they are queenless first. Even waiting a few hours can help. 

Sometimes you just do the best you can given the circumstances and hope for the best.


----------



## Troy (Feb 9, 2006)

Well these queens are important to me, so if it will increase my chances for success to make them queenless for 24 hrs, then I will make the drive 2 days in a row.

That particular hive is also my hottest one and the reason I am requeening it. So they are not a joy to handle.

I presume if they have built any queen cells in that queenless day I should cut them out?


----------



## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

The best way to enhance the chances of queen acceptance is
to release the attendants before putting the queen cage into
the target hive.

The second best way is to make triple-sure that you have a
queenless hive. Many more hives than you might suspect
have TWO queens co-existing peacefully, and removing 
just one will not do the trick.

The last best way is to requeen during a good bloom, or
put a feeder on. Busy bees are less hostile to you, and
less hostile to a new queen.

But there is no such thing as a sure thing.
No one has 100% perfect queen acceptance, not ever.
If you get 100% acceptance, you got lucky.


----------



## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Jim Fischer said:


> The best way to enhance the chances of queen acceptance is to release the attendants before putting the queen cage into
> the target hive.


That's interesting. How far in advance of introduction would you want to release the attendants.... minutes, hours?
Just curious, how does eliminating the presence of attendants improve queen acceptance?


----------



## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

I wouldn't release the attendants until just before you place her in the hive..like minitues before.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Why is that?

So they know they are queenless.

> Does in help increase introduction success?

Yes.

> One hive is about 30 miles away and so I'd rather not make the drive 2 days in a row, but I will if I need to.

Pack a lunch. Drive out in the morning, remove the queen. Check out the rest of the yard. Go for a walk. Eat lunch. Introduce the new queens. Go home.

2 hours will let them know they are queenless. Even quicker if you shake a frame of bees off into the hive and get their attention.


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I rarely direct requeen a hive anymore. Listen to what Jim asked...are you really sure the hive is queenless??

What I do is make a nuc. In fact, I use the entire top brood box as my nuc...provided it has brood in all stages.

Remove all supers if there are any. Shake ALL the bees out of the top brood box, and remove box from hive. Put supers back on hive. Put queen excluder on supers. Put top brood box and combs on excluder. cover. I leave it there overnight, but you could smoke the bees up through excluder if you can't come back.

After bees have re-populated brood box...you won't have a queen(s) there, remove box from hive. Remove excluder. Place inner cover on hive, rim up, entrance notch to rear of hive. Tape closed the escape hole in center on inner cover if there is one. Place queenless brood box on inner cover. Give caged queen, and cover. Nuc's entrance is to rear of hive.

The old bees will fly back down to old entrance, leaving young bees...which readily accept a caged queen. After about 3 weeks, when new queen has established her broodnest, go below and kill old queen(s), and unite. Works well nearly every time. If the new queen fails to be accepted, or is worse than the old one, you still have a laying queen below, and can try again.


----------



## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

Troy said:


> Well these queens are important to me, so if it will increase my chances for success to make them queenless for 24 hrs, then I will make the drive 2 days in a row.
> 
> That particular hive is also my hottest one and the reason I am requeening it. So they are not a joy to handle.
> 
> I presume if they have built any queen cells in that queenless day I should cut them out?


troy, I don't know where the 24 hours came from, I have heard 47 hours - every hive is different. I think the main caveat was if you go like a full week you run the risk of a laying worker.


----------



## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

FordGuy said:


> troy, I don't know where the 24 hours came from, I have heard 47 hours - every hive is different. I think the main caveat was if you go like a full week you run the risk of a laying worker.


If you go much beyond 48 hrs and sometimes even before 48hrs your now queenless hive will start queen cells if they have the means to do so.

Once they start queen cells, it can become that much more difficult to introduce a queen. Just been my experience.

I've also not seen a hive become a laying working hive after 1 week but maybe it can happen. Usually its been longer than 2 weeks when I've first started seeing signs of laying workers.


----------



## JC (Jun 3, 2006)

Michael Palmer said:


> I rarely direct requeen a hive anymore. Listen to what Jim asked...are you really sure the hive is queenless??
> 
> What I do is make a nuc. In fact, I use the entire top brood box as my nuc...provided it has brood in all stages.
> 
> ...


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

>If you go much beyond 48 hrs and sometimes even before 48hrs your now queenless hive will start queen cells if they have the means to do so.<

I think it's way quicker than 48 hours. 

Right now, I'm nearing the end of queen rearing and nuc making. 500 queens, and 300 nucs...so far. Some of these nucs, and some of the mating nucs I look at within 24 hours. For instance...I split up weak hives into 4 frame nucs. I move them to a new yard, several miles away. Next morning, I give a caged queen. Some of the nucs have populations that are too small. Some are too populous. This can happen because of drifting, or because a queen was transferred with one of the nucs...that queen is like a magnet to queenles bees. Anyway, I shake bees from the strong nucs, into the weaker ones. There are almost always cells started by the next morning...less than 24 hours in. They are small, and you have to look hard sometimes, but they're there.


----------



## JoeMcc (May 15, 2007)

Interesting....

My Nucs have been queenless since Sat. night. Im putting queens in them here in about an hour. I will look for signs of queen cells and see how it goes. If they are there I will remove them i guess....

:S

Joe


----------



## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

*Does the presence of queen cells really matter for intro*

I have observed that the stage of the queen cell may be a variable. Open or just capped cells, the hive will readily accept another queen or cell. Once the emergency cells start to pupate the bees seem to start to develop some fealty for the queen(s) cells. Conversely, many times, I have watched a laying queen in the cell building area ignore the developing cells in a cell builder until they start to pupate and then they seem to be recognized and torn down. I assume the pheromone compliment of the cells change as the larvae begin to pupate and become more queen like. Long story short, if I see open emergency cells, I know they will readily accept a queen.


----------



## JoeMcc (May 15, 2007)

JBJ said:


> Long story short, if I see open emergency cells, I know they will readily accept a queen.


After nearly 72 hours of being queenless my NUCs had 4 - 12 cells about 1/3 of the way pulled out. I used my hive tool to remove the larva and set the queen cage on the top of the frames and watched how the bees reacted. There were several young bees that looked to accept the queen but in every NUC there were at least one old grumpy bee with a black shinny thorax that was trying to bite the screen. A good spray of sugar syrup prob would have made it possible for immediate release but I didn’t want to take my chances. 

I installed an Olivarez Italian, a Minnesota hygienic, and a New World Carniolan (thank you www.cedarglenbees.com ). I also have a B. Weaver All Star (a little aggressive), and some Honey land Farms Italians (which I love). It will be interesting to see how they all do.

One quick note.....I noticed the more aggressive the hive the more drawn out the emergency cells. I guess that makes sense.

JoeMcc


----------



## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

> If you go much beyond 48 hrs and sometimes even before 48hrs your now queenless hive will start queen cells if they have the means to do so.





> I think it's way quicker than 48 hours.


Definately. I have a mating nuc that started 3 cells within 12 hours of being queenless the other day.


----------



## Riki (Jan 31, 2007)

JBJ said:


> Conversely, many times, I have watched a laying queen in the cell building area ignore the developing cells in a cell builder until they start to pupate and then they seem to be recognized and torn down.


I heard that it's because the larva is unaccessible (for the laying queen to kill it) while it's curled at the bottom of the cell, don't know any research about it, so take it with a grain of salt.


----------



## JoeMcc (May 15, 2007)

Well....

When I went back to check the queens after a few days I also looked around for more queen cells. There were indeed more cells but the larva were gone. There was still royal jelly in the cells though. There was one capped cell and I am not sure if the larva in it was still alive so I removed it.

JoeMcc


----------



## Troy (Feb 9, 2006)

All four of the queens that I introduced were successfully released.

One of them already had a half of one side of a deep frame full of young larvae, so she must have been released quickly and got right to it.


----------



## Troy (Feb 9, 2006)

Oh, just to be clear - I took most of the suggestions on this thread.

I caged the old queens and left them in the hive 4-5 days ahead of the new queens arrival.

I made the drive twice and removed the queen the day before introducing the new one. This left them queenless for about 24 hrs.

I removed the attendants before putting the new queen in the hive.

I did not feel the need to make up a nuc box and all that because I had caged the queen 5 days earlier and if I had seen eggs or young brood I would have KNOWN I had another queen in there. As there were no young brood I was confident that the only queen in the hive was the one I had previously caged. 

I put the cage in the hive near the center on a frame of capped (near emerging) brood so newly hatched nurse bees would encounter their new queen soonest. I placed the cages with the candy facing upwards and made sure that the crushed wax from inserting the cage did not block the candy tube opening.

I checked back in the hives 4-5 days later to make sure the queens were released, and they were. I saw all four queens walking the combs and one of them already had half a frame of newly hatched brood, so she must have got out the first day and got right to laying.

I feel like a proud father of 4 young girls!


----------



## Jeffzhear (Dec 2, 2006)

Dan Williamson said:


> If you go much beyond 48 hrs and sometimes even before 48hrs your now queenless hive will start queen cells if they have the means to do so.
> 
> Once they start queen cells, it can become that much more difficult to introduce a queen. Just been my experience.


I am going to find out how difficult tomorrow afternoon. I put together NUC's a week ago Monday, July 30th in anticipation of queens arriving on Wednesday August 1st. The USPS lost the new queens until I picked them up on Saturday August 4th and they were promptly inserted in no. 8 wire mesh cages. Tomorrow, the 10th I will go in and take a look and see how we're doing.

Got my fingers crossed...oh, and I did remove queen cells in all the NUC's when I put the new queens in....


----------

