Re-queening Russian Hives

[Pond Creek Farm]

I checked a Russian hive last night and saw the queen, but no brood. Intended to remove her tonight to requeen as I am getting the Russian genetics out of the yard.  When I opened the hive, no queen.  I think she left with a swarm while I was at work.  It was really interesting to see the difference in the hive from yesterday to today.  I am happy with the result however. I will be putting in queen cell on Friday and moving to locally raised stock.

[BeeMaster2]

Bee careful, by Friday you will probably have a new queen that was ready to hatch out when the swarm left. Check very carefully for the queen or any Q cells that were cut out on the bottom from the inside out. I wouldn't' release her until you find her and remove her.
Jim

[FRAMEshift]

Bee careful, by Friday you will probably have a new queen that was ready to hatch out when the swarm left. Check very carefully for the queen or any Q cells that were cut out on the bottom from the inside out. I wouldn't' release her until you find her and remove her.
Jim

Jim, what do you mean by "from the inside out"?   

[BeeMaster2]

I just meant that when a q hatches she cuts her way out on the buttom of the cell. When a Q is killed by another Q she is cut out from the side.

[Pond Creek Farm]

Got it all done last night. A friend brought three queen cells and we put them into the queenless hives.  One was quite small and we saw that the small hive beetles had hatched larvae.  We pulled every frame of that and discarded it, boosted the population with five frames of bees and brood and put in a queen cell that should hatch any day now. The other hives got queen cells and we split one big, booming hive of Italians with a walk away split.  Great fun, and I learned a lot from my friend.