NEW QUEENS

   On August 5, 2014 I ordered 2 local survivor stock queens to replace my package queens. I wanted to do this because having young queens will lessen my hives tendency to swarm next spring, and the queens are from stock that has made it through our SW Pennsylvania winters successfully. 

  The queens were due in on the 7th but the weather was predicted to be rainy the day before they came in, so on 8/5 I found and pinched the "Blue" hive queen. (the hive that wasn't up to par as far as I was concerned) The "Green" hive had a good queen, so I put her in a nuc with 3 frames of brood, 2 frames with honey & pollen. I also added a second nuc on top with foundation and shook extra bees into the nuc. I'm feeding them 1:1 sugar syrup for now. I hope they draw out those frames. We'll see if they can survive the winter. The fall flow is just showing signs of starting with Japanese Knotweed. The goldenrod is budded up but is still a week or 2 short of blooming.

   The queens were coming in around 8PM. I went through the hives removing queen cells and queen cups around 4PM. I found 8 in the "Blue" hive and 12 in the "Green" hive. I hope I got them all.

   I was worried that 48 hours without a queen would cause problems. Apparently not as the bees showed no signs of aggression. In fact, they appeared to be trying to feed the queens through the introduction cage. There is soft candy in opening, so the hives will have a few days to get used to their new queen. I'll check in a few days to make sure that they were released. I'll check again in a few more days to look for eggs, queen cells that I missed, supersedure cells, and the new queens. They are beautiful, plump, Carniolan based, mated, laying queens. I expect them to do well.

Updates: 8/20/14

   OK, one queen has started laying and there are now new eggs and larva in the green hive. All appears to be good. 

   Not so much in the blue hive. I started an inspection expecting to find similar results as were in the green hive. What I found was a queen cell that I had apparently ripped open when moving frames. This is probably one queen cell that I missed before introducing the new queen. The hive probably killed the introduced queen preferring their own home grown one. Totally my fault when I missed the queen cell. Waste of a good queen that was not to be found anywhere. There were no other queen cells, eggs or larva. My hive was now "hopelessly queenless." I ordered a replacement queen that arrived the 2nd day. I wanted to delay releasing her until I felt confident that she would be accepted. I opened the hive to install the cage and was greeted by the hive ROAR. That meant to me that they were indeed queenless. I went into the hive the next day and found a calm, quiet, hive with bees feeding the queen in her cage. I released her and will check back next week to give them some undisturbed time. I think this will work, at least I hope so. I need an attitude change in this hive. A good queen should do the trick. 

8/25/14

Eggs and larva found. The new queen is doing her thing. I hope that they have truly accepted her and don't try to supersede her this late in the season. Time will tell. I'm going to leave them alone for a couple of weeks before my next inspection.