Re queening Question

Beeboy01 · April 03, 2019, 07:52:00 PM

Well I'm getting ready to requeen two hives, one a double nuc and the other a double deep.The nuc came from the double deep last year which is a survivor hive that has been in my yard for years and over the last year or two has gotten just downright grumpy, swarmy and no honey with the nuc acting the same. It's time to get the mean genes out of my yard.
Here's how I would like to requeen both hives. First I'll move both hives to a different location in my yard, maybe 15 or 20 feet. Then I'll smoke them driving all the bees down into the bottom super. After that I'll check the top super for any queens and move the basically empty box over to the hive's original location in the yard and set it up as a new hive. This way all the field bees will return to the new hive in the original location which is where I will introduce the new caged queen after 24 to 48 hours.
The bottom boxes that were moved will get torn down after a week or two looking for the old queens which will get killed. I'll wait till the new queens get accepted before assassinating the old girls. After that I'll newspaper combine the hives back together.
I know that there are a lot of ways to do requeening, my question is should this procedure work and if not why not? Thanks

TheHoneyPump · April 03, 2019, 08:28:02 PM

It could be done a much much simpler way.

If you want to do it the way of splitting and moving boxes, that is is fine. It will work. However, I do suggest reversing the location of the queens in the boxes in your idea. The acceptance of the new queen will be more successful by her introduction to young bees at the new location. The bees flying from the new location to the original location are old bees. The way you describe, you will be introducing the new queen to the old bees. I fear for her!

Instead, tear the hives apart at the start. Find the old queen, put her safely into a cage or clip and set her aside. Go tearing through the boxes and sorting frames. Do some frame and box cleanup of burr and bridge comb while you are at it. The more disoriented and flipped out they are the better. ;) The more you clean up now the better.

Go through the frames and move most of the capped / emerging brood and some honey frames into the box that will be moved 15 - 20 feet way. In the bottom box at original location, put mostly empty frames. Use extra other egg/brood frames to boost other hives in the apiary. Release the old queen into the bottom box that is now void of brood and resources. Put a queen excluder on. Put the other box that has the capped brood on top. Close it up and leave overnight. In the morning, go take that top box off and carry it over to setup at the new location. Nothing special, no smoke nothing. Just go crack it and walk away with it. Set down on a ready bottom board at the new location and insert the new queen in her cage into that box. Go back to the old location, remove the queen excluder and put a lid on it.

The old queen is in the box at the original location. The old bees will fly there and those old bees will happily hang with the old queen and be busy taking foraging back to there.
The new bees will hang out at the new location with the new queen comfortably munching on the honey that you gave them.

Later, when you are happy (2 weeks). Go kill the old queen and newspaper combine the two boxes, putting the new queen and young bees on top at the original location.

It is a lot more effort and manipulation than it needs to be. But if you want to do it by moving boxes around, that is the way I suggest.

imho.

Beeboy01 · April 03, 2019, 10:40:38 PM

Thanks HP, that makes more sense keeping the old queen in the original location and move the brood off to the new location, pretty much a split with a store bought queen. Not sure about not using smoke, I'm pretty sure both hives have gone africanized which is why I'm requeening them. The nuc won't be much trouble, it's the double deep that's going to be a challenge, they light me up just about every time I check the hive and I'm not sure if either hive is queen right.
It's going to be fun no matter what. ;)

sc-bee · April 03, 2019, 11:41:14 PM

Do as pump says but add new foundation at the old location and take advantage of the flyback swarm to get new foundation drawn. Google flyback swarm Lauri Miller. No I have not tried it but I trust Lauri's advice.

BeeMaster2 · April 04, 2019, 08:05:27 AM

Beeboy,
I can make the calmest hive mean and I can make the meanest hive calm. It is all about you handle them and how you smoke them.
I teach the 10 minute and 30 second smoking procedure. Get your smoker puffing thick smoke. Puff 3-4 puffs into the bottom of the hive. Wait full 10 minutes, puff 3-4 puffs into the bottom of the hive and wait 30 seconds. While waiting, slowly slide your hive tool between boxes to break the propolis. Do not bang on the hive tool to do this.
One thing you do not want to do is bang anything against your hives.
Move slowly and gently slide frames in and out of the hive.
Jim Altmiller

Beeboy01 · April 04, 2019, 03:36:58 PM

I'll try the 10 minute smoker routine on the hives and already know better than to bang on them, been there and done it, learned not to. I even have a small table in the yard I use when scrapping burr comb off frames so I don't rile the girls up. The double deep is a survivor hive that has shown African traits last year, it throws a lot of small swarms, makes a lot of brood that covers the entire frame and doesn't store a lot of honey. I noticed when opening the hive last year the bees would fly out the top in a funnel shaped cloud, kinda neat looking but been told that it's a characteristic of AHB's.
Still no word on the local queens I ordered last week. The supplier said it could take up to two weeks for them to be ready. Glad when I did an inspection last week I swapped over a frame of brood to both hives. Just took a look today and spotted queen cells in both. The double deep had a freshly hatched Q cell while the nuc had one that hadn't hatched yet. Still will get the queens when they come in to start two nucs with for a plan "Bee".

TheHoneyPump · April 05, 2019, 06:58:59 PM

Quote from: Beeboy01 on April 03, 2019, 10:40:38 PM
Thanks HP, that makes more sense keeping the old queen in the original location and move the brood off to the new location, pretty much a split with a store bought queen. Not sure about not using smoke, I'm pretty sure both hives have gone africanized which is why I'm requeening them. The nuc won't be much trouble, it's the double deep that's going to be a challenge, they light me up just about every time I check the hive and I'm not sure if either hive is queen right.
It's going to be fun no matter what. ;)

Suggested no smoke simply because it is a quick manipulation and you actually do not care if they get riled up a bit at the switch. You want the skittish old bees to fly back to the original location anyways. Do not be abusive, but no need to be overly gentle about it either. It is literally like what - a 15 second job to grab the box and walk over to the new location 20 feet away, 15 second walk back to peel off the excluder and put the lid on at the original. No need to go through all the effort of lighting a smoker and prep for that minimal amount time. Just go grab the box and move it before getting into the car to go to work in the morning. You may want to put a veil on if they are as mean bunch as you describe. At the end of the day when you get back from work, go put the new queen into the box at the new location. Of course at that time be slow and gentle and use smoke.

Another reason for no smoke may be just for the fun of it. Like poking a sleeping bear up the nostril with a long stick. LoL.

Beeboy01 · April 05, 2019, 09:59:49 PM

The queens will be ready at the end of next week which will give me plenty of time to set the hives up with the queen excluders. " Poking a sleeping bear up the nose with a long stick" LOL guess it's something to do if you get the chance and would make a real good story if you survived. I'll pencil it in on my bucket list. ;)