Re-queen A Honey Bee Colony
See Re-queen
See OPEN,INSPECT AND CLOSE A HIVE
See HEALTH PROBLEMS AND PESTS IN THE HIVESee LIGHT AND EXTINGUISH A BEE SMOKER
ldentify requirements to re-queen a colony by
- assessing the vigour of the current queen
- monitor the colony for signs that indicate queenreplacement is necessary.
Prepare to re-queen a colony by
- obtaining replacement queens that meet enterprisecriteria from a commercial supplier or from ownbreeding stock
- storing replacement queens and any escort workerbees in appropriate conditions and monitoring themuntill re-queening is undertaken
- monitoring the hive to ensure re-queening occursunder optimum conditions
- confiming that the replacement bee is healthy andfree from parasites.
lntroduce replacement queen bee by
- locating the old queen in the hive and removing her
- in the cases where a queen bee has been raised ina nucleus colony,placing the nucleus colony on topof the colony to be re-queened and separating thetwo colonies by a single layer of paper, or catchingthe queen bee and introducing her to the othercolony
- leaving the hive undisturbed for a period of ten days.
Monitor the progress of the replacement queenbee by
- monitoring the colony for acceptance of thereplacement queen bee after ten days
- monitoring the replacement queen bee for evidenceof egg laying and adequate levels of hatching.
