Problem During Introducing Queen

[limyw]

It is a common practise for beekeepers to take away old queen from a hive and let it queenless for 2-3 days before new queen is introduces. The problem is when bees found they are queenless, the following day they would start to build new queen cell all over the place, hence demaged the combs when these queen cells are removed by beekeepers. How could we overcome this problem?

[Cindi]

limyw.  I think that the damage done when removing queen cells is so minimal that it is of no consequence.  The bees would rebuild this damaged area in absolutely no time at all.  That is their job.  They are builders and they need building to keep themselves busy.  So, I would honestly not worry about the damage in any way whatsoever.  Have a beautiful and wonderful day.  Cindi

[limyw]

Thanks for your comment.
I don't things these places would be repaired to become normal cells again. All locations of queen cell that were removed would foverever remained as spots for bees to reconstruct queen cell again and again, and they are not going to be normal cells for food storage, lay eggs, etc. This also means more work for beekeeper (because of too much queen cell to remove) and subject to higher risk of new emergence of new queen.
I think most of beekeeper would like to have even and nice looking combs.

[Cindi]

I don't things these places would be repaired to become normal cells again. All locations of queen cell that were removed would foverever remained as spots for bees to reconstruct queen cell again and again, and they are not going to be normal cells for food storage, lay eggs, etc. This also means more work for beekeeper (because of too much queen cell to remove) and subject to higher risk of new emergence of new queen.
I think most of beekeeper would like to have even and nice looking combs.

I am  not too sure if this is true, but may be.  I would be interested to see some comments from others with more experience than myself.  Let's see what comes from the forum.  Have the wonderful day.  Cindi

[Michael Bush]

>It is a common practise for beekeepers to take away old queen from a hive and let it queenless for 2-3 days before new queen is introduces.

Actually it's NOT.  It's common practice to let them be queenless for ONE day or a HALF of a day.  More will result in queen cells.  I prefer overnight.  I remove the queen late the afternoon before and install her in a candy cage or a push in cage the next morning.  If I'm in an outyard (long drive) I'll remove the queen, have lunch and put the new one in two hours later, in a candy cage or a push in cage.  This works almost all the time.

[pdmattox]

I will agree with cindi and MB. I like the overnight thing but i have introduced queens  within 2 hours of making them queenless with positive results.  Only done it that fast due to the distance to drive and not enough time to come back next morning.

[TwT]

I split one evening and then introduce the queen the next day but if she has attendants and candy I will leave the plug in the cage a few days before removing it, some bee's but mostly when introducing a Russian queen to a Italian hive leave the plug in for a few days to a week, good acceptance that way from what I have done...some times even adding queen the next day they will build Q-cells so you just have to tear them out, cant help that....

[limyw]

Well, if 2 hours or half a day is good enough, I would try it this time.
Only thing is should I leave caged queen for longer period, said 3 days and above, to ensure better acceptance?
Thanks all of you.

[beemaster]

Whether a few hours or a full day, you see that workers find out quickly they are queen-less and the clock is running. They are quickly choosing eggs or larva for the replacement, but I really never heard the idea of them CREATING PERMENT QUEEN CELL LOCATIONS just by drawing out cells - if that were the case ONE of TWO things would happen 1) you would only see queen cells in the same few locations every time they choose to replace or swarm out and 2) you'd see queen cells all over the frames, which just isn't the case.

Remember too - workers have been known to build queen cells for the mere practice of it, nothing going on in the hive warranted queen cells, yet they were building them. The only difference is the obvious OUTER PEANUT SHAPED part of the cell, the inner cell section is just a regular cell from anything I have ever seen, so one day it could be brood, the next food storage and someday (by pure happenstance, a queen-cell) Good question and answers all :)

[tig]

dont panic if you see queen cells in your hive.  the bees usually make some and not necessarily for swarming or superceding.  its mostly supercedure cells that are found in the middle portion of the comb and you can't control that.  swarm cells are mostly found on the edges or sides of the comb and removing those don't affect the look of the comb.

also, even after the new queen has been accepted, the bees will still make queen cells and the new queens don't destroy those.

i usually leave them queenless for a couple of day and remove all attendant bees from the queen cage.  but before putting the queen cage in, i inspect all the combs and destroy any queen cells they have started.  once they start a queen cell, the acceptance of the new queen is just about zero

[Michael Bush]

If you only have one hive in your back yard, leaving the cork in makes some sense.  I quit doing it because I have too many hives and I've found myself forgetting to go back and pull the cork.  The next year I open the hive and find the propolized queen cage with the mummified queen still in it.  I just do a candy release and then I don't have to drive back to the yard and if I forget it's no loss.