Forced Supersedure

[Patrick]

Hi,

I came across this and was wondering what opinions the good folks at beemaster might have.  I was wondering what the difference might be, if any, of just simply removing the queen.  I suppose the time of year might make a difference ( spring/late summer)?

 "Supersedure may be forced by a beekeeper. By simply clipping off one of the middle or posterior legs from the resident queen she will be unable to properly place her eggs at the bottom of the brood cell. The workers will detect this and will then rear replacement queens. When a new queen is available the workers will kill the reigning queen. The workers form a warming ball around the queen and so kill her by overheating - this is called by beekeepers "balling the queen", and can be a problem when introducing a new queen to a hive. This overheating method is also used to kill large predatory wasps (e.g. the Asian giant hornet) that enter the hive in search of brood. Forced supersedure should only be done when drones are available to inseminate the new queen. The emerging virgin queen may not survive one of her several nuptual flights which may result in a queenless hive. Monitoring for a laying queen is recommended when forcing a queen supersedure."

FROM
http://www.hwbka.co.uk/Types%20of%20Bees/Types%20of%20Bees/Queen.html




Cheers,
Patrick

[Two Bees]

Sounds like a cruel way to "off your queen".  Probably just better to wack her and save the workers the trouble!

[Michael Bush]

I think the concept is that you don't have to be queenless while they are doing the replacing, thus avoiding a 28 day lag in brood production.  However, I've seen many a lame queen lay for a couple of years without being replaced.

[Robo]

Here are a couple other opinions on supercedure queens.  Anytime your force them to make a queen, you deal with probability of proper/ideal resources.

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,20086.msg153226.html#msg153226