Re-Queening an Italian Hive w/ a Carniolan Queen

[Timbo Angelo]

Hi All,

My swarm hives Italian queen has died and I am wondering if there is any problem with placing a Car Queen with her caged attendants in the hive.

Thanks!

[BeeMaster2]

Italians are not normally hard to requeen with another race.
Russian bees are the ones that are quite often to requeen, especially with a different race.
Go for it.
Jim

[Timbo Angelo]

Thanks Jim,

I'll put the Carniolan Queen in today. Keep ya posted in a few days if it was a success or not.

Tim

[BeeMaster2]

Good luck.
I doubt if you have a problem. See how the bees react on the cage. If you can easily move them with your finger, they like her. If they are biting at the wire, hard to move them out of the way, give them time to get used to her.
I have added queens, no cage,  to queen less hives and had them take right to her.
I added a lot of bees to my observation hive, tried to separate the existing queen from new bees with news paper but she moved into wrong area before I got it closed. Her bees balled her for several hours until the new bees got used to her. By 11:00 that night she was laying eggs like crazy because she had enough bees to cover the frames.
Jim