Help me think this through, please...
During a flow, if I simply remove a successfully overwintered queen from a strong hive and allow the hive to replace her, I understand that I can
1. Increase honey stores by about 100 lbs,
2. Break the brood cycle and thereby also break the mite cycle,
3. Get a new queen with survivor genes.
I understand that it takes about 100 lbs of honey to feed a month's worth of brood. So, if I remove the queen and there isn't any new brood for a month, won't I get a heck of a lot of honey?
And why haven't I heard of this idea before?! Have I been under a rock?
-Liz
Sounds very much like a succinct description of Mel Disselkoen's great presentation on this very subject. If interested, you can see the YouTube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIYz65Vquxg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIYz65Vquxg)
Yes, SueCT, that's exactly where I heard this theory. Have you tried it?
-Liz
I think he calls it the powerhouse honey hive............ :-D
I do this with any queen that a year old to control swarming. It works well for that. As far as honey production there's a couple creveats.
This has to be done as the main flow is just getting underway. Comb needs to be drawn before hand. My bees don't draw well without a queen. While they do store honey that would be fed to brood and the workforce is bigger because they don't need nurse bees. They don't seem to go at it like a queen right hive. Everything seems to be a little lethargic.
Do it too late and you run a real risk of a swarm. When I've done it too early the bees filled the two bottom deeps but never touched the supers.
I was still able to take quite a bit of honey but no more than the queen right hives beside them.
I think the key is that they be in full blown gather mode when you pull the queen.
I would really like to hear some other people's experiences on this.
Woody Roberts
i've played around with it and had similar experiences to what wolfer described. they tend to fill the brood chamber before they draw new comb then you get a new queen with nowhere to lay.
if you time it right and have the drawn comb it does work better but a lot of that extra 100 pounds ends up downstairs. i don't extract from brood chambers.
Some things beeks do managing hives put too much work into beekeeping. It would be easier to me to have two hives side by side then to try to get the honey of two hives out of one.
Like Wolfer, I too discovered that it might not work that well. I pulled the old queen into a Nuc on April 19 because I also wanted to expand my number of hives. Well....it worked. On May 6th that same hive swarmed with their new virgin queen leaving two still capped queen cells. Thankfully I caught the swarm and it is buzzing along building. Once these thunder storms move out, me thinks I best peek because they may already be out of room. We are in full white clover and blackberry bloom right now. All the hives are hauling stuff in. Supers on the ready to add once the rain quits.
I'm gonna try it. I pulled a queen yesterday. But I hadn't thought about the fact that they'll backfill the broodnest...now I'll try to figure out how to give the new queen some laying room.
-Liz
Keep us posted Liz. Good Luck. G
I've been thinking about this today.
I've pulled the queen on a couple. Friday I can harvest the extra queen cells. At that time I'll move the cells in the hive to the bottom. Supers on next with the rest of the capped brood on top. About the time the queen goes on her mating flights I'll swap the supers with the top box which should be pretty empty.
If it works I'll let youns know.
Woody Roberts
I use all medium depth supers, so if they backfill the brood nest, I'll just swap those supers out with empty drawn comb in about 3 weeks. I'm on it, folks!
Okay, I don't want to hijack your string, but I have a couple of questions about how this all fits in with the idea of beeding local survivor queens from stock that has survived two winters, which is what some more experienced beekeepers advocate? If we're going to improve the survival ability of our native stock, why do we replace any queen more than one year old? Aren't we diminishing the good DNA of local stock and bringing in DNA from somewhere else, and we don't know the DNA or survival ability of that stock, or of the drones that queen has mated with? If our goal is to improve the harvest this year, maybe that's good. If our goal is more longtime, what's the advantage? Am I totally confused about what we're doing, or are we working against ourselves sometimes in our own interests? I admit that we are "using" honeybees for our own advantage, but don't we have a duty to give them something in return? Quid pro quo, as we lawyers call it? I'm not trying to start a revolution here. I'm just asking about these seemingly contrary ideas I see on the forum. I'd like to see every beekeeper, whether hobbyist or commercial, prosper and find happiness, but there seem to be different ways of going about it, and I'm mixed up about what's right and good.
Gary
Quote from: Dallasbeek on May 17, 2014, 12:48:22 AM
Okay, I don't want to hijack your string, but I have a couple of questions about how this all fits in with the idea of beeding local survivor queens from stock that has survived two winters, which is what some more experienced beekeepers advocate? If we're going to improve the survival ability of our native stock, why do we replace any queen more than one year old? Aren't we diminishing the good DNA of local stock and bringing in DNA from somewhere else, and we don't know the DNA or survival ability of that stock, or of the drones that queen has mated with?
Gary
I think you missed the key point counselor ....... or maybe I did :-D
>During a flow, if I simply remove a successfully overwintered queen from a strong hive and allow the hive to replace her
Dallas, i start a nuc with the old queen when i do it.
Dallas
I do like SC bee. I don't kill the old queen she gets to start a new hive. Next spring I'll do it again if she hasn't been superseded.
I have two queens that will be 4 this year.
Quote from: Wolfer on May 17, 2014, 10:09:38 PM
Dallas
I do like SC bee. I don't kill the old queen she gets to start a new hive. Next spring I'll do it again if she hasn't been superseded.
I have two queens that will be 4 this year.
That was framer but we three agree..... :-D scary ain't it :)
i'll be splitting my early splits in a few weeks and letting those old queens do it again.
Accidentally trying this,
One of my hives turned monstrous, beyond huge, 8 mediums packed overflowing. Figured they were about to swarm for sure this next week. Some queen cups with larve, but nothing capped. Broke it down to split it into thirds, but happened to stumble on the queen so I just split off 2 boxes with the queen and brood bees and added a couple of drawn supers to both.
Don
Quote from: Dallasbeek on May 17, 2014, 12:48:22 AM
Okay, I don't want to hijack your string, but I have a couple of questions about how this all fits in with the idea of beeding local survivor queens from stock that has survived two winters, which is what some more experienced beekeepers advocate? If we're going to improve the survival ability of our native stock, why do we replace any queen more than one year old? Aren't we diminishing the good DNA of local stock and bringing in DNA from somewhere else, and we don't know the DNA or survival ability of that stock, or of the drones that queen has mated with? If our goal is to improve the harvest this year, maybe that's good. If our goal is more longtime, what's the advantage?
As said above but not outright saying it, using this system IS breeding local survivor stock. What is done is basically removal of the queen, and then pushing the hive to take one of their cells (Aka their own DNA and survivor stock.) and making a new queen, so since it is a queen made from their own, it is preserving their DNA and at the same time taking some of the eggs/new larva as well as some of the nurse bees with it, out of the hive and making a hive building box, and pushing them to make more queens as well. IE somewhat doing a split. Some call this tricking the swarm into thinking they swarmed, and it is all the same genetics (generally, the new queen when going on her mating flight will get fertilized by numerous males introducing new genetics) as it all comes from the same hive. This uses the tendency of a new swarm not swarming once it get's to its new home to prevent swarming in general, and also uses the absence of laying during the new queen development to break the mite cycle at a time when they are building up as well to prevent them from over running a hive during their power cycle later in the year. If done correctly it pushes/delays their peak far enough into the winter when there is also a non laying period, which then knocks them back again, thus holding them in check.
MIA CULPA! I misunderstood whatyou folks were talking about, I guess. Somebody(the way I understood it) said replacing the queen. Re-queening or something to that efect. I understood (misunderstood?) that they were killing the old queen.
10framer, that's exactly what I did this year, so nowI have 2 instead of 1.
Wolfer and sc-bee, yep it is scary.
I think we're all in agreement on this, then. But I know beekeepers here who do kill off the old queens and replace them, and I can't understand it. I bought a queen this year, went into the hive and it was so full of bees there was no way I was going to kill that girl. So I split it and both are doing well. My wife was alarmed at the activity around the old queen's box last week until I watched and saw a huge number of bees orienting.
We're all hafving a late spring, I think, from Florida to Michigan, but I have wildflowers going wild two blocks from my house and now I'm concerned that I need to get some more woodenware ready to keep these bees from swarming.
That's what I want to see happening all over, so it disturbed me that a lot of people are "requeening" by killing off good, productive queens just because somebody says you need to do that.
Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I think this may have clarified the discussion for those that have been hearing the requeening argument the way I heard it. Let's requeen in order to increase the number of hives, not just keep our own hives going.
BTW, a guy at the Y Friday was telling me about a neighbor that had bees in his wall and called an exterminator. This is what needs fighting, too. He killed the bees, but he didn't solve the problem. A year from now, will he call an exterminator again? Unfortunately, he probably will, because that space will still be inviting to a swarm, but now it's contaminated by pesticides.
Good beekeeping to all you guys and gals who give a darn about he most important insect in our lives.
Gary
Well killing the queen is another story...but let's go over some views on WHY to requeen every year:
Queens do not live forever, and they also do not lay well forever. Some believe that by requeening every year, they keep a young and well laying queen who is young with energy and laying ability. What is more the issue is they do not know when she will slow down. I personally do not requeen necessarily every year. I pay attention to the queen, and sometimes requeen every other year.
a queen pheromones also fade. strong pheromones keeps the hive inline. and older queens tend to have a higher swarm rate also as well as sometimes angry genetics. First year queens tend to not swarm so much, and if a hive is angry, your only recourse is to requeen, really. We do not have so much a issue with that up north here, but it still happens where we get a hot blooded queen that makes hot followers.
Now....why do they kill the queens? To you it is a waste.... To those who do it, it is a question of, if they deem her not worthy of being in the hive for the various above reasons or others, why in the world would they put her in another one?
I look at it a few different ways personally.... first off, there is no promise you are going to get a good queen...so replacing it yearly, just increases your chance of randomly getting a poor one, or even of her getting snacked on when she makes her mating flight. Statistically the more times you tempt fate, the more of a chance its gonna bite you, as well as more of a chance it'll do good for you. If however you already have a top notch queen, then it is already doing good for you, so really you can only match or go down from there.... yet, queens are only going to produce so long, so the more she is burning top notch, then she is going to decline from that also.... but if you are done with her, then you might as well just kill her off.... there is no real reason to keep her alive. you can make queens easily once you get the hang of it. way more then you'll ever need or use.
So there you have it, I think. People who use bees like stability and dependability, and many have reasoned the dependability of regular replacement means more production for their purposes, and I don't doubt it.
Yep. I removed the survivor queen and placed her in a nuc with two frames of brood, a frame of honey, a frame of pollen, and an empty frame. That way, I continue to capture her genetics...and it's from this nuc that I'll select eggs/larva from which to raise more queens.
The hive from which I removed her has already made a number of queen cells...I've left 3 in the hive and cut the other queen cells out and introduced them to three-frame mating nucs.
In other words, Dallasbeek, I'm capitalizing on this maneuver by creating approximately four additional hives from this one queen's survivor genetics...while ALSO 1) hopefully harvesting more honey, and 2) breaking the mite cycle.
So far, so good.
-Liz
Mia---- back at ya :-D
Without re-reading everything and totally relying on my failing memory, although many still consider me young, I did not mean to kill the old good queen. Move her to a nuc with a split and if a queen fails you have a back-up. Or she grows a new hive. That is one of my weaknesses as a beekeeper, allowing an old queen to limp on. Wish I would learn to dispatch them in a bottle of alcohol sooner. And then use in those swarm traps I been planing on hanging for the last 10 years :-D
Best of both worlds hopefully. Keep an old queen banked in a nuc to have if needed and the parent hive where the queen was removed rears a new local hopefully productive queen.
I am going to try this. It sounds like a win-win to me. I will do it to the swarm I caught last year they work twice as hard as the package I bought.
Went out today and pulled a Queen from a 3 deep med and she still had the paint from last year, I plan on going back in 9-10 days and getting some nice Queen cells. I did it to one 10 days ago and pulled three frames with cells and put them in a Queen castle today also. I went to my next yard and a big swarm came out as we pulled up and I got them, I have northern Queens coming next week to make nukes