Benefits of removing the queen from a strong hive

[Dallasbeek]

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

[Better.to.Bee.than.not]

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.

[TwoHoneys]

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

[sc-bee]

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.

[Switchback]

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.

[mdbee]

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