The bees have formed a partial circle near her. Look at the picture to the left and see if you can spot the queen. Learn to spot the queen by those around her. We sell these simple frame holders that slip onto the top of the hive body so you can hang inspected frames outside the frame until your inspection is complete, preventing the queen from jumping back onto an inspected frame. Why not? Because I missed seeing her, or as soon as I started pulling a frame out, she would jump onto a frame that I had just inspected and placed back into the hive. Back in my early days of beekeeping, I had trouble finding my queens, because I could carefully search a frame, put it back in the hive, pull out another frame and never find her. For those of you living in the deep south and southwest, where there are reports of Africanized bees a marked queen ensures you that your queen has not been replaced by an Africanized queen. A marked queen helps you spot her, and lets you know if she has been replaced. It's worth the challenge, but it is a challenge. No queen in September means no winter bees.you get the picture. Thus, there is a risk in removing an old laying queen for a new one, because the new one could be a dud, worse than the older one. A liability might be that the bees will not accept her, and the weather may keep me from inspecting to insure she is accepted and laying well. However, it also carries with it the most liabilities. I prefer August because it produces the most Spring benefits. However, requeening in September is more difficult because during September there is not a heavy nectar flow and bees more readily accept a new queen during a heavy nectar flow. And, when spring arrives, a new queen will be ready to lay as the weather warms up. Winter bees live a few months longer because they are not working much during their lifetime due to mainly riding out the winter in a cluster. In fact, she may lay some good brood of winter bees. July-September is often viewed as the best time to requeen because it allows your young queen time to become well established with her hive prior to winter. We've talked about why to requeen, not let's talk about when. However, more often than not, it takes a bit more work. Sounds simple, and sometimes it is just that simple. Find the old queen if the hive still has a queen, remove her and introduce the new queen. Simply put, here's how to requeen a hive. Let me give you some tricks of the trade. Beginners seem to be reluctant to requeen, because most beginners do not have the confidence yet to open a hive, maticulously search every frame until the queen is located, grab her in your hand, and put the hive back together quickly. Who? When? What? Where? and Why? These are questions surrounding requeening a hive. I'll address queen stock in a moment, but for now, let's consider requeening a hive. You will need to determine where to buy your queen from stock that you prefer. You should seriously consider requeening your hive once a year. Therefore, many beekeepers don't bother, and yet they complain about how they didn't take off as much honey or how the hive has mites. Though requeening has so many positive benefits, it just takes time and it is expensive unless you raise your own queens. Not all beekeepers replace their queens every year or two. You know that when you go to bed at night, your queen is keeping the hive together.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |