Re; the hive I spoke of in the topic "aggressive bees". I picked up a queen tonight on the way home from work. I took a frame of uncapped brood from another hive, pulled a frame of pollen and honey from the middle of the mean hive. Looked for a queen again. Put the queen cage in between the brood frame and next frame. Closed it up.
My wife gets home, comes down to the barn fussing about a bee pinging her alll the way from the house. Next thing I know my ear is buzzing and on fire. Boy, I hope they take this queen!
Did you find the current queen and kill her?
Whether you are placing the queen in the hive after killing the old queen, or installing a queen in a made up nuc, it's still best to wait a day before introducing the queen.
Bjorn is right. You not only need them queenless. You need them queenless at least overnight. Especially with a hot hive.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrequeeninghot.htm
I may be VERY wrong, but at this point I believe the hive is already queenless. I know they can be very difficult (especially for me) to find, I have looked for her three times. The hive population is falling pretty quickly at this time. There are no eggs or brood, capped or uncapped. Just some empty, never capped supersession cells. I guess now time will tell.
being queenless could explain why they are aggressive. how are they treating the caged queen?
I agree, all the signs say it is queenless and has been for some time. I would think about leaving both corks in the queen cage for a day or two longer, just in case some workers are developing ovaries, even if they aren't laying yet. Just to be on the safe side.
Quote from: iddee on February 24, 2009, 07:40:31 PM
I agree, all the signs say it is queenless and has been for some time. I would think about leaving both corks in the queen cage for a day or two longer, just in case some workers are developing ovaries, even if they aren't laying yet. Just to be on the safe side.
I agree but leave the corks in 3-4 days is what I would do, I have introduced russian queens in by leaving the corks in about 5 days then letting them get released, worked out fine
i used to do 3 but had better luck last year with 5. no harm in leaving her caged.
She is staying caged til they get her out. Well maybe when I look in it Sat., if they haven't ate the candy and things look right, I'll let her out. Dave Miksa told me to put a piece of masking tape over the candy to slow em down. He thought it was queenless also. He said they will eat through masking tape. He also told me that if there was a useless queen still in the hive there was a 50/50 chance they would take the new one after about five days. He said the trick was in putting brood in the hive and her next to it.
If Dave Miksa doesn't know, I doubt you will find one that does. What he said is what I would do.
Thats what I figured. I tried to get his son Ted to come over and help me last night. He was just too wore out though.
Day 5, shes still in the cage, about 1/8" of candy left, not a lot of bees on the cage.
Let her out??
1/8 in??? She will likely be out tonight. I wouldn't disturb the colony again for another 6 days. At that time, you should have either success, "eggs and hatching brood", or failure, "dead hive". Another disturbance this close to release may well insure a failure.
Quote from: rast on February 28, 2009, 04:07:39 PM
Day 5, shes still in the cage, about 1/8" of candy left, not a lot of bees on the cage.
Let her out??
rast, if there is not many bees on the cage, it may take days for the bees to eat through the rest of the candy.
I like the finger method. If you can take your finger and gently move the bees from the screen by stroking their back, they are probably going to accept her. If the bees have a death grip on the screen and will not move, they are not taking to her.
At this point, it sounds like they may be starting to ignore her. Are you sure they are not raising queen cells on that frame you moved over?
I don't see the benefit of waiting 3, 5 or some longer period of time. I've never had the need to keep a queen caged up that long for introducing a queen. Yes, they may never take her if the raise their own queen, or if there is a queen you failed to see. But this whole wait another week, or don't disturb or they will kill her, is questionable in my mind. I introduce, cage, move queens, etc., a thousand time a year and never have the concerns or the long drawn out waiting period some are suggesting.
Let her out. If they are taking her after five days, you got something else going on there.
If you lose one out of a thousand, no big deal. If you lose one out of two or three, it is a big deal.
Apples and Oranges
Quote from: iddee on February 28, 2009, 05:00:13 PM
If you lose one out of a thousand, no big deal. If you lose one out of two or three, it is a big deal.
Apples and Oranges
No its not. One out of a thousand in the same rate you should have for one. What your saying is that if you lose 1 in a thousand, then why all the concerns out such a slim chance in introducing one queen.
I'm just saying iddee, that if you can not get a queen introduced in a week, there are probably other issues.
I've had people tell me they waited so long for the queen to get out that by the time she did, they had raised another queen. And I'll bet that if a frame of eggs was moved over, then queen cells are there. And if the queen does get out, they will eventually kill her. Seen it many times.
That sounds entirely different. He's on the 5th day. If she comes out tonight, that will be less than a week. I just do not like disturbing a colony the first few days she is out. I like to give her a few days to lay before getting them agitated.
I think we are arguing over whether it's 6 or a half dozen. :-P
iddee..who's arguing. I call it entertainment... :-D
Now, now, boys :-D.
I agree with both of you. I poked a small hole in what whas left of the candy and closed it back up. I'll look on the landing board for her in the AM. Open it back up next Sat. again and see what we got. She was/is in one of those plastic queen cages. Not my laying worker cage.
I just wish I was better at spotting existing queens. Just the fact that this hive had no brood, capped or uncapped and no eggs makes me know the previous queen is either worthless or dead. Plus the fact that these bees are meaner than a rattlesnake.
Thanks
Rast, me and Bjorn go back a long ways. Like he says, we're not arguing, we're having fun.
He's an all right guy. Just don't tell him that. It might go to his head.
Quote from: BjornBee on February 28, 2009, 05:10:23 PM
I've had people tell me they waited so long for the queen to get out that by the time she did, they had raised another queen. And I'll bet that if a frame of eggs was moved over, then queen cells are there. And if the queen does get out, they will eventually kill her. Seen it many times.
working with pure Russian queens its takes a good 5 days in the cage to insure acceptance when introducing into a Italian hive, when waiting this length of time cells can be started and this has to be watched for, I have seen it before, you just have to take the cells out yourself. once the queen is released it is wise to check for cells again after a week to insure that no other cells are started, sometimes when they get in the cell building mode when queenless it takes a few weeks to get it out of there system. I think this is one problem that happens to people that say "
my hive went queenless and I bought an introduced a new queen, she must not have been a good queen because after about a month they replaced her" all this person did was not find the queen cells when they introduced the new queen, now they have a emergency queen heading their hive, it happens all the time, anytime introducing a new queen cells should be watched for. this can happen when taking old queen out and introducing a young queen, not all hives build cells when swapping out young and old queens but when it takes a while like Russians queen introduction, always watch for cells.
Quote from: TwT on March 01, 2009, 12:58:27 PM
Quote from: BjornBee on February 28, 2009, 05:10:23 PM
I've had people tell me they waited so long for the queen to get out that by the time she did, they had raised another queen. And I'll bet that if a frame of eggs was moved over, then queen cells are there. And if the queen does get out, they will eventually kill her. Seen it many times.
working with pure Russian queens its takes a good 5 days in the cage to insure acceptance when introducing into a Italian hive, when waiting this length of time cells can be started and this has to be watched for, I have seen it before, you just have to take the cells out yourself. once the queen is released it is wise to check for cells again after a week to insure that no other cells are started, sometimes when they get in the cell building mode when queenless it takes a few weeks to get it out of there system. I think this is one problem that happens to people that say "my hive went queenless and I bought an introduced a new queen, she must not have been a good queen because after about a month they replaced her" all this person did was not find the queen cells when they introduced the new queen, now they have a emergency queen heading their hive, it happens all the time, anytime introducing a new queen cells should be watched for. this can happen when taking old queen out and introducing a young queen, not all hives build cells when swapping out young and old queens but when it takes a while like Russians queen introduction, always watch for cells.
That's right.... ;)
Bjornbee, there were not any eggs in the frame I moved over. It was one of those picture perfect frames of a large oval of capped brood with the honey in the upper corners and pollen in the lower parts. Both sides. I didn't want any eggs because of what you spoke of. They already had uncapped queen cells and nothing to put in them.
rast,
You mean queen cups(?)
Let us know when she gets out. I guess it is now day 7.......
I am having the same problem with one of my hives. The queen died with the majority of the hive. The brood hatched and I have maybe 100 bees left alive. I am going to replace her with a new queen.
Good Luck.
Quote from: BjornBee on March 02, 2009, 08:24:09 AM
rast,
You mean queen cups(?)
Let us know when she gets out. I guess it is now day 7.......
I guess queen cups is probably correct.
This evening was the first chance I had to open it and look. The cage was empty and eggs and larva were present in the two frames I pulled. They also started taking the syrup again a couple of days ago and were bringing in pollen today while I had it apart. Some of the larva were just starting to C shape.
She's been out at least 4 days or a tad longer. :devilbanana:
Just reporting back. Wow what a difference in a hive. Kittens compared to the lions they were. Eating me out of house and home now also. I moved them yesterday to an orange grove that is just starting to blossom.
Glad to hear everything worked out fine!!