Russian Queenless Honey Factories?

[IndianaBrown]

After reading this it may not be as crazy as it sounds, but it just doesn't seem right somehow...
http://www.russia-ic.com/education_science/science/breakthrough/237/

[Mici]

i think it would be great to take advantage of tha last summer forage bees before they all die. i mean, if i knew hot-to i'd take all forage bees out of my hive this second, and take them somewhere away, wherever there is forage. i mean..does a hive even need forage bees when you start winter feeding??

[Brian D. Bray]

That's like making a martini using a sour grape instead of an olive.

[Mici]

You really think so??
i've been thinking, what IF!?!?!
next year, when i'll have enough bees, i'd take a frame from each hive and errm take the bees off and put them in another hive (as if i was trying to make another familly), with the queen bee inside of a cage. wouldn't they function normally?

[mousestalker]

Sounds like the bee version of those ant farms that used to be advertised in comic books when I was a boy.

[Brian D. Bray]

Mici,
If you keep the queen caged you lose the queen too.  mousestalker is right, it is the bee equivalent of the ant farm.

[Mici]

so, the queen MUST lay eggs to survive?

where to get queen pheromones, i've heard of people dissolving old queens in alcohol

[Brian D. Bray]

Mici,
The queen will be lost because there are no new nurse bees being hatched.  With the queen caged she can't lay, the workers die off and so does the queen.

You can give the bees the sense of a queen rite hive by using a swarm lure, which is how the queen in alcohol is used.

[Mici]

thanks, i didn't think about it. so the lure that works for swarms would work for them as well