How To Make Artificial Supersedure Queen Rearing?

Vicken · November 16, 2016, 06:08:09 AM

I know that supersedure queens are best I really want to learn this methode or is it just for study purpose?

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Michael Bush · November 16, 2016, 08:02:35 AM

I'd say swarm queens are the best...

little john · November 16, 2016, 08:22:34 AM

I wouldn't want to get into a 'which procedure is best' argument - but it's easy enough to create supercedure cells, just place a frame of eggs/larvae well away from the brood nest. Placing such a frame above a Queen Excluder is usually enough, but if not, then insert a box (of anything) between the Q/X and the box holding the frame of eggs/larvae to create more distance.

You can even insert selected larvae (result of grafting/ punching etc) in place of the framed comb. There's a technique which has come to be called 'The Rose Method' (not to be confused with The Rose Hive - different beekeepers with the same name) which is based on precisely this principle.
LJ

Acebird · November 16, 2016, 08:43:19 AM

Supercedure is natural. How do you make it artificial?

little john · November 16, 2016, 09:46:50 AM

Quote from: Acebird on November 16, 2016, 08:43:19 AM
Supercedure is natural. How do you make it artificial?

By creating conditions that suggest that the queen is failing, when in fact she isn't.
LJ

Acebird · November 16, 2016, 10:12:09 AM

Quote from: little john on November 16, 2016, 09:46:50 AM
By creating conditions that suggest that the queen is failing, when in fact she isn't.
LJ

I don't think you can do that. I think you can create conditions that suggest the queen is gone and when you do it becomes a natural emergency response not a supercedure.

little john · November 16, 2016, 11:50:25 AM

If it'll help:

QuoteA Beekeeper's Guide to Rearing Queen Bees

QUEEN REARING, Frank Pellet

Under Supersedure Impulse
147. When a queen is found to be, or thought (148) to be, failing, arrangements are made to supersede her. This is done by worker bees, new queens being raised from selected larvae of suitable age in the cells in which they are growing, these cells and their surroundings being suitably modified. [...]

Queenright Supersedure
148. If a portion of the brood becomes separated from the remainder where the queen happens to be, by a substantial barrier, such as combs of honey or a queen excluder, such portion including eggs or young larvae, the bees in that portion are likely to raise queens from young larvae in the manner above described. Such a colony is clearly not queenless. The queen may be in full lay and able to continue so. It is not clear, therefore, whether the partially isolated portion of the bees consider themselves queenless or to have a failing queen. It is difficult to believe the former, as the bees do not have to search even the outside of the hive to find her, and in the writer's opinion the bees in the portion of the hive in question conclude that the queen is failing, and he calls the impulse "queenright supersedure".

LJ

rwlaw · November 16, 2016, 12:00:50 PM

This is from Dave Cushman's website. Like he says, it was before bk's understood what would trigger a supersedure.
" Human intervention has meant there are several other aspects of supersedure that wouldn't happen naturally. Queens produce a pheromone from their feet called "footprint pheromone" that is distributed on the combs as she walks on them. The reduction of footprint pheromone seems to send a signal to the bees indicating there is a problem with the queen and supersedure cells are built. This was recognised a long time ago by beekeepers who requeened their hives by simply cutting off one leg from the queen, so supersedure would occur. They of course didn't know why the bees built supersedure cells."
Even Doolittle didn't understand why, if he placed viable eggs above a queen excluder, the bees would make q cells,

BeeMaster2 · November 16, 2016, 12:16:43 PM

Good info Rwlaw and LJ.
Thanks for posting.
Jim

Acebird · November 16, 2016, 02:05:20 PM

I don't buy it. Just looks like opinion to me.
If you install an Excluder over the brood chamber that doesn't cause queen cells to appear above. You have to bring brood and eggs up above and essentially create another brood chamber and at that point it is an emergency in my opinion.

Michael Bush · November 16, 2016, 02:33:34 PM

I've had queens with a bad leg who lasted a few years. Others did not and failed, but still were not superseded...

little john · November 16, 2016, 03:33:38 PM

Quote from: Acebird on November 16, 2016, 02:05:20 PM
If you install an Excluder over the brood chamber that doesn't cause queen cells to appear above.

Of course it doesn't - no-one has suggested that

QuoteYou have to bring brood and eggs up above and essentially create another brood chamber

Exactly - that's why it's an artificial procedure - rather than a natural one.

Quoteand at that point it is an emergency in my opinion.

But a perfectly viable queen is wandering around perhaps only inches away from those new cells. Emergency queen cells only occur in response to queenlessness - but that colony isn't queenless ! That's the whole point of raising q/cells in this way - to produce higher quality (at least, that's the belief) supersedure, rather than emergency q/cells.
LJ

Acebird · November 16, 2016, 05:25:13 PM

Quote from: little john on November 16, 2016, 03:33:38 PM
(at least, that's the belief)

My point, "it is a belief" something I don't think you can prove.
Another abnormality ... a two queen castle, again separated by an excluder, yet the workers from both colonies co mingle with each other in the supers without tearing each others heads off.
To me what you described is an emergency. There will be no more eggs laid in the upper section so they have three or four days to get their act together. With a supercedure the queen is still laying but not up to par so the colony may have a couple of weeks or more to replace her. The eggs in both situations are equal so I don't know how someone can come to the conclusion that one process results in better queens over another.
All my queen rearing (that's a laugh) is a result of emergency cells due to walk away splits. To say that these queens are inferior is silly. The colonies make a lot of honey and do a pretty good job of surviving mites without any chemicals at all. I have no complaints from my emergency queens.

divemaster1963 · November 25, 2016, 08:32:05 PM

i like using the under cut method. under cut fresh eggs and let them build Queen cells. then after they cap the cells i look for the Queen and snip a wing just before the new Queen emerges. they will usually protect the new Queen and kill off the injured Queen or I'll pull the old Queen out. this works about 40-65 % of the time. but timing is the thing. i have a special yard that i do this in late season for hives that are not laying good. i mostly due under cutting and then walk away splits in spring.

john

Vicken · November 26, 2016, 02:03:24 AM

I noticed that Italian like renewing queen for fertility and better brood rearing and quickly notice if their queen is injured, while carniolens worship their queen in its worst situation which sometimes causes to their death, if you're on Carniolen it's difficult to supersede queens, that's my opinion of what i have noticed through years

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Vicken · November 26, 2016, 08:17:57 AM

I had an Italian queen with one back leg paralysed it could lay double and triple eggs in one cell she was very fertile,but the next year when i inspected the hive in may honey flow season for me, There was a daughter laying with here together on different combs, i made the mother a split but the split again superceded, that is what i am talking about.
I want to say something about supcedure cells; supercedure cells don't come in the brood area they are in the bottom or edges of the frame just like swarm cells, and definitely the queen lays in these cells fertilized eggs, I have noticed them

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