I am new to beekeeping (2 years)and have a lot to learn so bear with my ignorance.....the weather is just getting to the point where I will feel OK about looking over the Hive for the spring. My bees are very busy and look healthy. I will look to see if the queen is laying in good concentration if she is....should I leave well enough alone and not requeen as I have heard many do??????
best time to requeen IMO is after your honey harvest, if you must.
I'll be getting a couple of queens, maybe, if I have to do some splits...
I try to requeen a minimum of every two years and sometimes every year. I really only try to keep awsome queens another year, not just because I think they may do well for me for another year, but because I'm breeding queens and I want their genetics around in the form of drones and possibly raising another crop of queens. By the time a queen is one year old she makes less QMP (Queen Madibular Pheromone) and therefore is more likely to swarm. By the time they are two they are pretty well done and will almost always fail by the time they are three.
I prefer requeening in the late summer or fall. First the queens are cheaper, if you're buying them, second I can raise better queens that time of year, third, I can buy Northern raised queens that time of year, fourth, I can requeen at a time when disrupting the hive with a new queen won't adversely affect my main honey crop.
But if I think a queen is failing at any time I will try to requeen that hive, whether spring or summer or fall.
Your other choice is let the queen fail and the bees will supercede her, but the other danger is that before that happens, the bees will be more likely to swarm and leave with her and half the bees.
How many splits you gonna make this year?
[This message has been edited by Scot Mc Pherson (edited March 02, 2004).]
I have enough equipment on hand to have 10 colonies, that's if I use/ reuse my supers.
But I don't know yet, how many I'll make up this year. I'll be reversing the hives next opportunity, then I'll be able to have a better idea of what to do and order some queens.
It's going to be rainy here for a few days....
LOoks like the first opportunity I'll have to reverse will be early next week, then I'll decide....
This is what I hope to get done...
Drone comb etc... This is done pretty soon.
I had planned on using the drone magnet method, but I never have. It takes a lot of resources for the bees to make those drones and they will make more to replace the ones you take. It's better than letting them die from mites, but I think there are less bee labor intensive methods.
You are walking in grey teritory here. Your queen is doing fine, my instinct is to leaver her alone. If she was three years old, I would not even hesitate with requeening. Rule of thumb to keep inmind, older the queen, the higher chance of swarming, and the higher chance of queen failure.
What I would do is leave her, but mark her with here age colour. Make a few cells and throw them in cell protectors in the hive. Do it while the colony is building and not booming into a swarm. Letthe bees decide...
Check for the queen a month latter to see who is running the colony, and mark the new queen it is so happens.
[This message has been edited by Ian (edited March 03, 2004).]
But you know, instead of taking all that bother, you might as well just kill the old queen and replace her witha new mated. Not like you have hundreds of queens you would have to find