Crappy swarm queens

[KeyLargoBees]

Not sure how to quantify the term "a lot" but I have caught probably 24 swarms this spring .. So I'm going to say "a lot" :-)  three or four of them were queenless or the virgin queen never returned from a mating flight but the rest of them say 20 swarms I probably got 13 really strong hives and 7 where the queen just pretty much sucks... And the weird part is the bees just will not supersede them ... I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt until the end of June and then start pinching and breeding my own Queens or buying them but does anybody have any suggestions other then mass Regicide to get these seven back on track?

[iddee]

Make up 7 nucs with the dud queens. If the new queens make it and prove themselves, then pinch the dud and combine. If some don't make it, or prove to be worse, then combine using the dud queen. She is better than no queen.

[little john]

"... the queen just pretty much sucks... And the weird part is the bees just will not supersede them ... "

And so the colony selects the queen, and the queen in turn generates the colony, which selects the queen, and so on ...    It's a classic 'chicken and egg' situation.  A very experienced beekeeping friend of mine often talks in terms of the 'spirit' of a colony - some colonies have it in bucketfuls from day one, and some just never develop it.

Although it may be the bees that are at fault rather than the queen, it's necessary to break that cycle of mediocrity somehow, and replacing the queen with one from a proven dynamic strain is probably the easiest option.  The alternative is to wait it out and see if they manage get their act together.  Personally, I'd go for new queens if you really need those colonies up and running asap.

There is a very neat system for re-queening that either the Aussies or Kiwis (forgotten which) use - they create a tiered two-box setup with two independent entrances facing in opposite directions. A queen cell is installed in the box that the laying queen isn't, and the virgin is allowed to emerge and mate and prove herself before the old queen is snuffed-out, when the two halves of the colony are finally re-combined.  It's a system which was designed for production colonies to allow re-queening 'on the fly' without losing any momentum due to queenlessness.  Might be suitable for your nucs if you have enough spare boxes ?  I'll try and find the link if you haven't already read that paper.
LJ

Link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00288233.1972.10421270

[KeyLargoBees]

LJ thats an interesting thought....something like this?

http://www.thebeeyard.org/rearing-queens-via-the-cloake-board-method/

[little john]

Sure - a Cloake Board would be perfect - except a tad expensive if you're planning on running seven at the same time.  But - there's no reason why you couldn't cut-up some old queen excluders (it's not necessary to have wall-to-wall Q/X's, just as long as a fair percentage of the board area is Q/X. The Morris Board uses just 4"x4" of Q/X, which works well enough), and use sheets of plastic for closure.

I'd be inclined to run the Cloake-Board (or equivalent) exactly as done when queen-rearing normally, i.e. shake-off some brood combs and place above the Q/X and let the nurses ascend through to cover them.  Then, instead of grafts, place a comb of BIAS from a desirable colony in place instead.  Run through the Cloake procedure and allow a couple of q/cells to go the full distance.  Virgins can sometimes be on the small size, so I'd be inclined to fit a mesh over the Q/X just prior to emergence, to allow pheromones to pass through, but ensure that the virgin doesn't.

Then allow the virgin to harden-off and mate, and prove herself within the top box before lifting it off (with Q/X still in place), and dumping the contents of the bottom box into a spare box via another Q/X (or use a Marburg Box if you have one) to find the duff queen and either squish her, or save her as a 'spare' if you think it might be worthwhile to do so.  Return the dumped bees to the lower box, and leave the two boxes combined for a few days with Q/X open, then pull the board out completely.

According to the figures in Table 1 of that research paper, it's not significant whether the queen to be replaced is held either in the upper or lower box - so I'd keep her in the lower box (as per normal when using the Cloake Board) for ease of manipulations, and so that checks can more easily be made of unfolding events within the top box.

In general terms, this could be a very nifty way of re-queening, without the uncertainty inherent in prior de-queening followed by the occasional loss of the new queen during the mating process.  I really must try this myself, next time there's a need.
LJ