New Queens

Zane · March 09, 2009, 12:09:51 PM

I am wanting to re queen a few hives. I have access to Purvis queens locally and wanted to know others feelings and results w/ these queens?
I tried Minn Hyg last year and didnt like the aggresion of them. Any other recomendations for a North Missouri beek?

TwT · March 09, 2009, 11:13:47 PM

if you get the queens from Dann himself I would say you are getting good queens, if you are getting queens raised from his queens and open breed then they might be good or not, depends on what they breed to. hard to say in that case but odds are they will be good queens, should get them from dann himself then judge, I have done well with his queens, they build up fast, top honey producers and the last pure queen I got from Dann lasted 3 1/2 years before she died. he has good bee's.

gmcharlie · March 11, 2009, 01:12:22 PM

may not be the right place but TWT obviously keeps his queens around....... I have been running into a lot of people lately that say requeen every year, or after july... etc..... lets assume you keep a queen until shes failing, what do you use as your judgment critera? do you wait until there is a noticable change in buildup or brood? or do you have some other deciding factor?

Scadsobees · March 11, 2009, 01:55:17 PM

Queens...you are going to get 150 different answers :roll:

Older queens tend to allow more swarming, since there pheremones aren't as strong.

Unless the queen is a really good one, its about 2 years max for me. But I'm pretty laid back about things and it isn't all about maximizing honey for me.

Rick

Shawn · March 11, 2009, 02:34:45 PM

I bought two Purvis last year and thought they did really well. I thought Purvis Brothers had great customer care. The one queen was placed into a deep body and by the end of the season she had two deeps full, out doing the other queens in the yard. It also seemed they were alot calmer than some of the hives. Check out this post.

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,13737.0.html

TwT · March 11, 2009, 11:05:47 PM

Quote from: Shawn on March 11, 2009, 02:34:45 PM
I bought two Purvis last year and thought they did really well. I thought Purvis Brothers had great customer care. The one queen was placed into a deep body and by the end of the season she had two deeps full, out doing the other queens in the yard. It also seemed they were alot calmer than some of the hives. Check out this post.

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,13737.0.html

I agree with most on that post you posted Shawn but the 10 day thing is crazy to me, I would only leave a Russian queen in for 5 days at most before pulling the cork introducing her to a Italian hive and by that time she will be out the next, they done eat most of the candy. Guest I never seen the rest of that post before, might have been a time I was working a lot sorry.

Shawn · March 12, 2009, 12:14:46 AM

I didnt wait 10 days, I think 4 because it rained the thrid day I was going to let her out.