When is the perfect time of year to pinch a queen?

SgtMaj · May 05, 2009, 05:29:59 AM

If there's no particular problem forcing a beek to requeen asap, when is the best time of year to requeen by pinching the old queen (in time of year terms of before, during, or after the spring or fall flow or summer dearth or whenever, but not in terms of calendar year since we all live in different climates)?

jimmyo · May 05, 2009, 09:45:55 AM

You can interrupt the mites breeding cycle by doing it after the turn of days in June. See Mel's website for more info.
http://www.mdasplitter.com/
he has some interesting ideas. We are going to try this method this year.
Jim

Eshu · May 05, 2009, 12:15:25 PM

I like to replace queens after the fall flow. That way they have a strong queen going into winter. It seems the overwinterng odds are better with a young queen. It is also easier to get quuens in late summer/early fall than in the spring. There are a lot of people trying to get them in the spring.

SgtMaj · May 05, 2009, 06:36:17 PM

Quote from: Eshu on May 05, 2009, 12:15:25 PM
I like to replace queens after the fall flow. That way they have a strong queen going into winter. It seems the overwinterng odds are better with a young queen. It is also easier to get quuens in late summer/early fall than in the spring. There are a lot of people trying to get them in the spring.

You're buying pre-mated queens though, right? I'm talking about just killing the old queen and letting the hive make a new one out of the remaining eggs. I'm thinking after the fall flow might be too late to guarantee good mating.

Eshu · May 05, 2009, 06:40:45 PM

You're right, I misunderstood what you meant. I was talking about mated queens.

For letting them raise their own, I do May or June when there are lots of drones. But then our flow doesn't really get going until mid- to late-July.

Pond Creek Farm · May 05, 2009, 10:17:47 PM

If the queen is bad (or not up to snuff at least) why would one choose to askt he bees to raise a new queen from her stock? It seems to me that if I have a bad queen I would pinch her and get new genetics into the hive. Thoughts?

Robo · May 05, 2009, 10:28:59 PM

Quote from: Pond Creek Farm on May 05, 2009, 10:17:47 PM
If the queen is bad (or not up to snuff at least) why would one choose to askt he bees to raise a new queen from her stock? It seems to me that if I have a bad queen I would pinch her and get new genetics into the hive. Thoughts?

Good logic :-D

http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/can-you-afford-emergency-queens/

JP · May 05, 2009, 10:34:25 PM

Quote from: Pond Creek Farm on May 05, 2009, 10:17:47 PM
If the queen is bad (or not up to snuff at least) why would one choose to askt he bees to raise a new queen from her stock? It seems to me that if I have a bad queen I would pinch her and get new genetics into the hive. Thoughts?

I agree. Also, if it ain't broke it don't need fixing. As M.B. points out, queens do their best work in their second year.

...JP

SgtMaj · May 05, 2009, 10:42:07 PM

Quote from: Pond Creek Farm on May 05, 2009, 10:17:47 PM
If the queen is bad (or not up to snuff at least) why would one choose to askt he bees to raise a new queen from her stock? It seems to me that if I have a bad queen I would pinch her and get new genetics into the hive. Thoughts?

Assume the queen is good she's just getting pinched so that it'll be a young queen going into winter so that (hopefully) the hive won't try to do a reproductive swarm the next spring.

JP · May 05, 2009, 10:46:10 PM

Bees wanting to swarm is a sign of a healthy hive. Your job is to look for the signs and head them off at the pass.

...JP

Robo · May 05, 2009, 10:49:19 PM

Quote from: SgtMaj on May 05, 2009, 10:42:07 PM
Assume the queen is good

Mother queen quality is only a fraction of the concern with emergency queens.

TwT · May 05, 2009, 11:34:28 PM

pinching queens is a old still of beekeeping that has mostly gone out of practice, before mailing bee's was going most old timers use to do this in the dearth months right before fall flows started, they use to get queens that was up to snuff and a bunch of hive that didn't re queen themselves right was combined before winter, most now days just order well breed summer and fall queens and get a lot more and better hives going into winter than the old pinch stile, I am sure that some still pinch heads but if you going to pinch them then feed them good starting a week before and feed strong until cells are capped, just not worth the work and time for me, I still have 4 brood queens with yellow markings on them, those are 07 queens and still going strong, i will let the hive tell me when they need a new one ;) (because I am in these hives every 8-10 days), good luck

SgtMaj · May 05, 2009, 11:46:26 PM

Quote from: JP on May 05, 2009, 10:46:10 PM
Bees wanting to swarm is a sign of a healthy hive. Your job is to look for the signs and head them off at the pass.

...JP

By that time heading them off at the pass will mean having to do a split, which I wouldn't mind except it means that I'll have two weak hives for every hive that would have otherwise been a strong hive, and I'd rather just have a strong hive to work the flow. Besides, I'm lazy and that sounds like work.

JP · May 06, 2009, 12:07:47 AM

It wouldn't hurt you to learn how to do a split. Yoy may want to consider it, this way you'll have more than one hive to work with.

...JP

SgtMaj · May 06, 2009, 04:22:02 AM

I already have more than one hive to work with. But I'd rather have fewer strong hives with less risk of a swarm than more weak hives and greater risk of a swarm.

pdmattox · May 06, 2009, 08:29:36 AM

Heading them off at the pass does not necessarily mean doing a split. There are other management styles that are easy will not over work you. I will also add that if there is not a problem I will not requeen just for the sake of doing it. I have brood rearing going on year round and I'm not out requeening hives because they are failing.

Robo · May 06, 2009, 08:43:37 AM

Quote from: SgtMaj on May 05, 2009, 11:46:26 PM
and I'd rather just have a strong hive to work the flow.

And when you end up with a poor emergency queen you have one weak hive that you made out of one strong hive. But you don't seem too worried about emergency queens and are basing your method on assumption that you'll get good emergency queens. We all know what assuming does, except in this case there is no ME involved in your hives. ;)

I suggest just doing what you want. It doesn't seem like you want advice, you obviously have your mind made up and are just hoping for someone to validate it. You don't want to recognize the issues involved with your proposed method, but easily find fault with any other method recommended.

If your worried that much about swarming, use the snellgrove method.

SgtMaj · May 06, 2009, 10:51:28 AM

Quote from: Robo on May 06, 2009, 08:43:37 AMIt doesn't seem like you want advice

I'd be happy for some advise about the question I asked. If I want to know if I should buy a bag peanuts in China on the 4th of July I'll ask, until then you may assume I'm primarily interrested in advise about the questions I ask and not about everything else.

So far all the advise has been about why would you want to do that, why doesn't matter because I'm asking a "when" question, not a "should" question.

So to recap, the question I asked was not about how to prevent a hive from swarming, but about when the best time of year to lose a queen and replace via an emergency queen? If you want to take a crack at answering the question, I'm all ears.

bailey · May 06, 2009, 11:03:08 AM

you were getting the best advise from some of the most experienced guys on this forum! as well as their thinking as to why they gave their advise!
perhaps you would do well to listen to the guys that have alot of hives and that have had them for a long time!

bailey

SgtMaj · May 06, 2009, 11:16:30 AM

Quote from: bailey on May 06, 2009, 11:03:08 AM
you were getting the best advise from some of the most experienced guys on this forum! as well as their thinking as to why they gave their advise!
perhaps you would do well to listen to the guys that have alot of hives and that have had them for a long time!

bailey

Right, and it was advise that had nothing to do with the question I asked. Next time I'm considering if I should pinch a queen I'll take their advise into consideration, but I'm not asking if I should, I'm asking when the best time of year to do it is. If they don't know, all they have to do is say so, or don't even say anything.

If they really just want to answer the question of if I should that badly, they should do so in the other thread where I asked if I should pinch a good queen. But in this thread I'm looking for the answer to this question... make up whatever hypothetical situation you can think of if it will help you answer this question.