I think I am queenless!

[Kathyp]

you could take those emergency cells and make a nuc with a couple of frames from other hives.  that way, you have a backup if you lose the queen you just bought, or lose another.  your nurse bees can come from any combination of your other hives and you don't need to much for a nuc.

[Brian D. Bray]

I agree with mb let them raise there own, all beekeepers should stop rushing out to buy a queen to replace home grown bees.I here a lot of talk on this forum about queens not being as good when they are emergency or supercedures.how due you think all of the queen sellers are getting there mass produced queens to sell they fool the bees to make a new queen.jeremy c i see you are from summit co. ohio , i am in southern ohio,your winters can bee quite cold and windy. let them raise there own and mate with the local dronesmay turn out to be a hive to raise more queens from next summer.

For those whoe believe home grown queens are so bad ask yourself why so many packages are getting superceded after hiving.  Then ask yourself is it really so smart to kill a queen the bees are raising and replace it with a commercially produced queen, likely from the place you bought the packages.  Then you wonder why that newly boughten queen gets superceded too. 

Give me local queens raised by the bees themselves.  Since I don't use chemicalss, and treat the hives as if they were feral, I don't see the supercedures that those who use  boughten queens often do.  Climatized local bees are better. 
Taking a queen raised commercially in Georgia (sorry) and put it in a hive in Wisconsin and expecting the hive to survive a winter of subzero temps is being overly optimistic.  It can and does happen, but climatized bees takes 2 winters to develop and the losses are high until then.

[Robo]

For those whoe believe home grown queens are so bad ask yourself why so many packages are getting superceded after hiving. 

I don't believe anyone is insinuating local queen are bad.  In this particular case, it is all about resources needed to make a queen.  I could be wrong, but in this case, I don't believe a 2lb package just over a month old has enough young bees to produce good queens.  Even from the pictures, the cells look puny.  Now I know some will claim great queens from puny cells,  but I believe it is an exception rather than the norm.

Give me local queens raised by the bees themselves. 

Couldn't agree more, as long as the conditions and resources are ideal.

Since I don't use chemicalss, and treat the hives as if they were feral, I don't see the supercedures that those who use  boughten queens often do.  Climatized local bees are better. 

Absolutely, same here.    Difference is ferals have already been sorted out by mother nature.  Those treating are nursing along weaker bees that would not survive as ferals.

Taking a queen raised commercially in Georgia (sorry) and put it in a hive in Wisconsin and expecting the hive to survive a winter of subzero temps is being overly optimistic.  It can and does happen, but climatized bees takes 2 winters to develop and the losses are high until then.

Agreed.  My best purchased queens came from Canada.   Border restrictions caused my supply to stop shipping to the USA,  and that is what motivated me to start raising my own.  Fortunately there seems to be more and more northern queen breeeders for those that can't raise their own.

I will still stick to my assertion that although bees are capable of raising emergency and supersedure queens, the long term success rate of it in ferals is low.  Just like you claim it takes two years for bee to acclimate to a local environment,  it takes more than a few prime summer months of good behavior to rate a queen.  I also believe queen failure plays a bigger role in winter loss than most are willing to acknowledge.

[GJP]

Jeremy,

I'm a second year Beek who has expereiced queen problems both years.  Last year I over fed my two hives (3 lb packages) and one swarmed before I knew what was going on.  I let them requeen themselves and ended up with a poor queen from swarm cells.  I eventually requeened the hive, switched positions with the other hive and added brood frames on at least two occasions.  The hive went into winter very weak and died out over the winter (even with extra feeding and stores from my strong hive). 

This year, I bought two five frame nucs from another beek in Wisconsin.  They were both in excellent shape with lots of brood and bees.  Both Nucs received new Minnesota Hygenic Queens when they were created by the other Beek about 2 weeks before I picked them up.  They started out very strong and looked good for the first week.  On me second inspection about 10 days after I hived the nucs, I found swarm and supercede cells in one of the hives.  Having gone through the whole process last year, I just sat back (been trying to cut back onthe beer lately) and waited.  I did add a frame of brood a week or so ago and am happy to report that the new queen is laying very nicely.  They have plenty of space and are actually pulling in pretty good amounts of pollen and honey right now.  They are obviously behind the other hive but I am hopeful they'll be back up to full speed in a couple of weeks. 

I guess in short, my experience last year and this year taught me that a new queen may be relatively inexpensive (until you pay for shipping), but that doesn't guarentee your bees will accept her. 

Good Luck,

Greg