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  • Re-queening artificial swarm & unite

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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #10880  by Liam
 14 May 2021, 10:26
I have been learning about swarm prevention and managed to control most of my strongest hives before they built any charged cells and knocked the swarming instinct on the head. Unfortunately due to bad weather one hive did produce charged cells, so I did an artificial swarm padgen.

I have set the boxes up so the hive containing nurse bees and QC faces 90 degrees away from the original hive, as I intend on reuniting them but I also want to requeen them.

I’m thinking I requeen the nurse bee split? Let her settle in, and maybe two weeks later kill the old queen and reunite?.

How soon can I requeen the nurse bee colony that has all the brood?. I obviously will need to knock down all cells built. I don’t want to let them re-queen them-self.

How long before they would be out of swarm instinct and safe to reunite them?.

Appreciate any advice.
 #10881  by NigelP
 14 May 2021, 11:38
Liam wrote:
14 May 2021, 10:26
How long before they would be out of swarm instinct and safe to reunite them?.

Appreciate any advice.
Always a tricky one. ....can be some time.
A suggestion if you are buying in a queen to introduce then cage your old queen for several days before hand. That way the hive is still queenright but the bees are left with no eggs or young larvae to draw queen cells from.

Personally I find introducing queens to full colonies tricky at the best of times particularly if the introduced queen is of a different strain. I usually introduce queens into nucs and if I want to requeen a colony pout the nuc beside the colony to requeen. After queen is accepted and laying I then move the old hive away, upgrade nuc to full hive including frmaes of brood from the other hive . All the flying bees enter the new colony and after dispatching queen in old colony you can amalgamate the rest to your new queenright colony. Bit of a faff but it seems to work fine.
 #10883  by AdamD
 14 May 2021, 13:15
My understanding Liam is that you have done an artificial swarm so the flyers have joined the queen on the old site. This leaves the brood and queencells. If you don't want this queenless colony to raise it's own queen, you need to be doubly sure that there are no queencells or emergency queencells before introducing a new queen.
Acceptance is more likely to succeed without the flyers. As the colony has few flyers, I think it's better to feed them at the time of introducing a new queen (say put a feeder on the day before). They don't need gallons of syrup but they will be content with a small amount (1/4 litre per day) for a few days until the queen is accepted and laying. I would be inclined to leave them for a couple of weeks before uniting.
 #10885  by Liam
 14 May 2021, 13:45
Yes, that is correct. I have a snelgrove board on order which hasn’t turned up yet that I intend to learn how to use. This colony 100% wanted to go. Poor weather meant I couldn’t get in and the queen had slimmed right down so I acted on what I knew how to do. Unfortunately this colony has always been swarm inclined no matter if they have room or not, so time to deal with it.

I have re-queened before but have never done it after an artificial swarm so wasn’t sure if it’s wise choice or not.

Thanks for the help, I will follow advice and tips and cross my fingers :) .
 #10887  by NigelP
 14 May 2021, 17:31
Just to add a thought about adding a new queen in a cage. The conventional wisdom usually says remove tab next to fondant and the bees will take a few days to release her. This is one that should go in the "old wife's tales and myths". It's less than12 hours for that fondant to be eaten (usually).
Sometimes you will get away with doing this but not often.
My approach these days is leave tab intact and suspend queen in cage (plus attendants) for 3 days. Then see how bees are reacting to queen in cage,, just sit cage on frame and watch. Usually they are fine and then you can release the tab. If you do in in the evening she will be free next day. It's not 100% reliable, but about as good as it gets.
Don't rush it!
 #10894  by AdamD
 15 May 2021, 10:28
My queen introduction is usually replacing my own with my own, so acceptance should be more reliable. Sometimes I use just heavy smoke and let the queen walk in and that works although I feel more comfortable putting her in a cage for some reason.
You are right Nigel - there's often no need to rush.
 #10895  by Liam
 15 May 2021, 11:59
Unfortunately I can’t let them requeen, this colony has always been a pain in the butt, very high swarm instinct no matter the room, poor temperament (not extreme but not great)

I had a look today in the split with queen and they started on 15 queen cells and 7 charged. Most on the face of the comb, some spread out, some all together and many empty cups all built down the side of a few frames in clumps. They had drawn out 2 frames of foundation, the queen was fat again. I’m wondering as she slimmed down they decided to replace her as wasn’t laying as good after being on a diet.

I have a queen on order for nurse bee split. See what they have done in the other part of the split in a few days time. :o
 #10896  by Liam
 15 May 2021, 12:03
NigelP wrote:
14 May 2021, 17:31
The conventional wisdom usually says remove tab next to fondant and the bees will take a few days to release her. This is one that should go in the "old wife's tales and myths". It's less than12 hours for that fondant to be eaten (usually).
Yes, I couldn’t agree more. If you put fondant or even sugar bricks on a hive they can get through it pretty fast, so will leave tab and then after 3 days check how they are treating her inside the cage.