The queen! You gotta love her. You know that when you go to bed at night, your queen is keeping order, giving directions and expanding your hive. She’s in charge. You keep bees, but really the queen is the real bee keeper. The hive’s success is kept under her watchful eye.
But here’s another hard fact to face. Not all beekeepers replace their queens every year or two. Though requeening has so many positive benefits, it just takes time and it is expensive unless you raise your own queens. Therefore, many beekeepers don’t bother, and yet they complain about how they didn’t take off as much honey or how the hive has mites.

You should seriously consider requeening your hive once a year. You will have to determine where to buy your queen, from stock that you prefer. I don’t like buying queens from others. Even though there are many impressive breeder queen suppliers, you just really never know the quality of your queen until she is released and goes to work in your hive.

I’ll address queen stock in a moment, but for now, let’s consider requeening a hive. Who? When? What? Where? and Why? These are questions surrounding requeening a hive. Beginners seem to be reluctant to requeen, because most beginners do not have the confidence yet to open a hive, maticulously search every frame until the queen is located, grab her in your hand, and put the hive back together quickly. But, it really isn’t all that bad. Let me give you some tricks of the trade.

Simply put, here’s how to requeen a hive. Find the old queen if the hive still has a queen, remove her and introduce the new queen. That’s it. Sounds simple, and sometimes it is just that simple. However, more often than not, it takes a bit more work.

We’ve talked about why to requeen, not let’s talk about when. September is often viewed as the best month to requeen because it allows your young queen time to become well established with her hive prior to winter. In fact, she may lay some good brood of winter bees. Winter bees live a month or two longer because they are not working much during their lifetime due to mainly riding out the winter in a cluster. And, when Spring arrives, a new queen will be ready to lay as the weather warms up. However, requeening in September is more difficult because during September there is not a heavy nectar flow and bees more readily accept a new queen during a heavy nectar flow.

I prefer September because it produces the most Spring benefits. However, it also carries with it the most liabilities. A liability might be that they bees will not accept her, and the weather may keep me from inspecting to insure she is accepted and laying well. Thus, there is a risk in removing an old laying queen for a new one, because the new one could be a dud, worse than the older one. No queen in September means no winter bees…you get the picture. It’s worth the challenge, but it is a challenge.

HOW TO SPOT THE QUEEN

Use marked queens. A marked queen helps you spot her, and lets you know if she has been replaced. For those of you living in the deep south and southwest, where there are reports of Africanized bees a marked queen ensures you that your queen has not been replaced by an Africanized queen.

Use a frame holder. Back in my early days of beekeeping, I had trouble finding my queens, because I could carefully search a frame, put it back in the hive, pull out another frame and never find her. Why not? Because I missed seeing her, or as soon as I started pulling a frame out, she would jump onto a frame that I had just inspected and placed back into the hive. The trick? Use a frame holder. We sell these simple frame holders that slip onto the top of the hive body so you can hang inspected frames outside the frame until your inspection is complete, preventing the queen from jumping back onto an inspected frame.
Learn to spot the queen by those around her.

Click on the picture to the left and see if you can spot the queen. The bees have formed a partial circle near her.

When looking at a frame full of bees, if you can’t find the queen try looking over the entire frame and observe how the bees are behaving.

Two things signal a queen. First, she is often encircled by bees. Not always, but often enough that you should look for this circle of bees. Secondly, bees get out of her way. In addition to these two signals, I’ve even tracked her down by her occasional sound she sometimes makes. It’s almost like a faint sound of a smoke detector only more rapid and with a slight buzz. This is called piping. It is most common when a queen is newly released and it not heard so much from mated, established queens unless there is a new queen being introduced in a hive that already has a queen and the two are politicking for followers.

Look for freshly laid eggs. Another trick that I use is to carefully examine the unsealed brood cells. I look for freshly laid eggs. Ah, then I know the queen was at that cell not too long ago. It’s sort of a bread crumb trail. I rarely find queens on full combs of honey or pollen, but mainly only on opened cell comb, that’s just right for laying eggs.

I Found Her And Want To Replace Her…Now What Do I Do?

Normally, a queen will not sting. Unlike the working bee, the queen does not lose her stinger but it is rare for her to sting the beekeeper. I’ve never been stung by a queen, even when holding them captive in my hand between bee yards. But it is possible.

Usually if you are removing a queen to requeen a hive you probably do not want to use that queen in a nuc or another hive. You are requeening her usually because she is too aged or substandard. Let me put it nicely. She’s done. I’ll leave it to your creative thinking as to how you wish to end her life.

Timing is important. You need to have your replacement queen on hand before you kill the substandard queen. Once you remove the old queen, wait at least 24 hours before introducing the new queen. You may even wait up to 2 days. However, remember that your bees will know that they are queenless and will begin to resolve their problem by raising their own queen from a fertilized egg. This is one way to requeen a hive, just allow the bees to raise their own queen. In doing it this way, you have to wait three to four weeks before she will emerge, mate and begin laying. And remember that by raising your own queen she will have most of the characteristics of her mother. That may or may not be what you want.

So, after waiting a couple of days, you can now introduce your new queen. Before doing so, check the hive to be sure there are no queen cells. You can remove sealed queen cells and use them in other hives such as splits, nucs or queenless hives by gently pressing them into the comb of a queenless hive.

How Do I Introduce A New Queen?

There are many ways to introduce a queen. It boils down to two basic methods. Direct release and indirect release. Direct release is rarely a good idea as the bees will usually “ball” the queen and kill her. On rare occasions I have directly released queens into queenless hives successfully. Once I covered the queen with honey, and set her near the entrance. Bees will come out, clean the honey off the queen, and usually she will walk in once she is well groomed. Sometimes I have sprayed down the hive with sugar water with peppermint extract in the water. The smell seems to neutralize the bees from attacking the queen.

On the other hand, the indirect release method allows the bees a chance to get used to the queen before she is free to walk among them. However, prior to her release, she must be in the hive, but kept safely from the bees who may want to initially kill her.

Old time beekeepers used a method that is still very successful even today, though many people have either never heard of it, or don’t use it. It’s a queen cage made out of hardware cloth, shaped like a square, about 1/2 – 3/4 inch tall with the bottom missing. It is pressed down over sealed comb with the queen inside, holding the queen within the cage. Be sure that no other bees are in the cage, only the queen. This gives time for the queen to be accepted by the other bees.

What has almost replaced this method is that of indirectly releasing the queen in cage she was shipped it, the mailing cage. These shipping cages are the same that are included with packaged bees. However, some queen suppliers are using a combination of a mailing cage and a push it screen cage.

Click on the two videos below to see the cages in greater details.

When your queen arrives in her mailing cage, the cage will have a candy plug on one end. You will have to remove the cork to expose the candy plug. Now, take a very small nail or pin, and carefully poke a very small hole through the candy plug. Be careful not to make it too large. And when you poke it through, be careful not to injure the queen on the other side. This hole will encourage the bees to begin to eat their way through the candy. This usually takes a couple of days.

Place the cage between the frames. By placing the candy plug up, the queen can always climb up and out and the opening will never be blocked by her dead attendants. By the time the candy plug has been eaten through, the queen will have become accepted within the hive. It is very important to wait one week before opening your hive after installing the new queen.

In one week, inspect the hive to ensure the queen is out of her cage, alive and if you have drawn comb you can inspect to see if she is laying.

Now, let’s go back to the old fashioned cage that is pressed into the comb over capped brood. I like it! It works well. Any emerging bees within the caged area immediately take to their new queen. Her pheromone has a chance to spread over comb and on to other near by bees. This is a good method to use in September to help the queen become accepted in the absence of a nectar flow.

We make and sell these cages. Our cages do come with a small opening where you can insert a mini marshmallow. This serves as a candy plug, giving time for the bees to accept the queen while they eat through the marshmallow.

How Do I Select New Queens And Where Do I Find Good Suppliers

Trial and error will lead you to a good queen provider, and the supplier may or may not be a well known and long established breeder. You may find that the best queens are raised by the beekeeper down the road who has 30 or 40 hives and is willing to sell you sealed queen cells. I have pursued the various ads boasting of a great queen only to find didn’t live up to how she was advertised. However, there are some suppliers who go to great lengths to raise the best possible quality queens.

Personally, I am more successful in operating my hives with survivor stock queens, queens that I find in barns and trees, feral queens who have already demonstrated that they can survive cold winters, mites, disease and swarm very little. I keep track of the hives in my yards that continue to survive year after year and produce an above average amount of honey and from these hives I raise my own queens.

I use a new queen rearing system that allows me to never have to graft eggs with tools. This system works great and can produce hundreds of queens in several easy steps. We also sell these systems. They are expensive, but can pay for themselves after producing just 10 queens. It is worth the investment.

Which Race Of Queen Is Better?

There are many races of queens each claiming to have unique characteristics. Here’s a few common ones:

Italian, Minnesota Hygienic, Cordovan, Caucasians, Carniolans, Russian, and Buckfast . We’ll look at the different characteristic of these queens in our next lessons.

This sounds exciting and fun and it is and to make bees your business, you’ll have to learn how to successfully split your hives. This is how you can multiply our hives without spending money on buying packages every year. Or you can do both, split some of your hives and buy a few packages too. It is the most cost effective way to add additional hives each year. Normally, a certain percentage of hives die each year. We expect a 20% loss over winter. Sometimes there is no loss, and sometimes more than 20%. I have around 40 hives going into winter, and I know that 10 are pretty small and light and will probably not make it. It’s not the cold. Bees can survive cold weather just fine. It is because they never built up to be a full size hive before winter arrived; they didn’t store up enough food for winter. Some of them were hives I removed from residential areas late in the year. I could replace these by purchasing new packages, and sometimes I do. However, at $50 a package, that gets expensive each year. Splitting a hive only cost time and maybe a new queen, unless you raise your own.

There are several advantages and reasons why you will want to split your hives:

To increase the number of you hives.
To prevent swarming.
To produce nucs.

MAKING SPLITS IN OVERWINTERED HIVES

It is important to realize that splits should only be made from overwintered hives, or what we refer to as second year hives. A first year hive usually will not expand enough to split.

Of course, how soon you start to split your hives will depend upon where you live. You will have to wait until the evening temperature is warm enough so that the transferred brood will not become chilled. It is a gamble for me, here in Central Illinois, to make splits prior to the month of May. A thoroughly populated hive can keep their brood warm on a cold night, but not a small split.

Although there are many variations in making splits, let me give you the simplest explanation, then I will expand upon the variations.

In its simplest form, a split is nothing more than several frames of brood, bees and food sources taken from a strong hive, and placed in an empty hive. You might think of it as a controlled swarm, although a natural swarm only consist of bees and not brood or comb. But, when making a split, we also add brood, nectar and pollen to the split. Thus, making a split can discourage swarming.

When I make splits, I simply pull our 4 or 5 frames of brood in various stages of development, along with the bees on those frames, and place them in an empty box. I also add a frame or two of nectar and pollen from the strong hive. And, I feed my new split 1:1 sugar water as well.

If you know that your transferred brood has eggs that are less than three days old, you do not have to add a queen as the split hive will realize they are queenless and begin to raise their own from the fertilized eggs in the brood. This is preferred when I wish to retain the qualities of the queen from the strong hive.

This is convenient for me, because it doesn’t matter to me where the queen is, either in the old hive, or perhaps I moved her over to the new split. As long as both hives have 1-3 day old eggs, the queenless hive will raise their own queen.

CHALLENGES IN MAKING SPLITS: ADDING VARIATION TO INCREASE SUCCESS

Since I have lots of hives in small areas, I have found that my stronger hives have a tendency to rob my small splits of their honey. Therefore, if you find this to be a challenge, simply move the split at least 2 miles a way, keeping it there until it can become large enough to defend itself. Then you can bring it back and place it where you want.

Also, sometimes I fail to supply enough bees, especially nurse bees, to care for the amount of brood I have transferred into the new split. Therefore, it is helpful to shake frames of young bees into your split hive. It is best to shake them from the hive the split was made from to prevent fighting.

Another challenge may be that one of the hives may not raise their own queen. In this case, it is important to check within a few days to see if a queen cell is being formed. If not, you will need to call us up and order a queen.

Another slight variation is to add the variation of a screen. In this case, the split is on top of the established hive. The split is placed on top of the hive they were removed from, with only a screen to separate the old hive from the split on top. The heat from the old hive keeps the split warm above. This is successful but the entrance of the split on top should face the opposite direction than that of the hive below. Eventually, the split can be taken off the hive and moved to it’s autonomous location.

Some beekeepers claim to make 16 splits from one hive each year. Generally you can always make one split but sometimes 2, 3 even 4!

Make you splits as early as you can, as the split will need time to prepare for winter. There are many who are practicing splits in the fall. This is possible, however, if you live in a region with hard winters, you will have to place the split on top of an established hive, divided by a screen, and the split must be fed or have plenty of nectar and pollen.

I have also made splits with just two frames of brood and bees. So, you’ll have to experiment and see what number works for you.

Making splits is really pretty easy! And think of the savings of not having to buy a package or a new queen.

I have fun doing the math with splits, like this. Say you have 2 hives and in 2008 you make a conservative single split from each hive. Now you have 4 hives. In 2009 you get brave and split your 4 hives, but this time you make 2 splits from each hive. Now you have 12 hives.

12 split twice = 36 hives by 2010
36 split twice = 108 hives in 2011
108 split twice = 324 hives in 2012
324 split twice = 972 hives in 2013

In 5 years 2 hives could increase to nearly 1000!

In our next lesson, I’ll be sharing how to get the most honey from you hives. Then, I’ll share how to market your honey, such as bottling and labeling and were to go to sell your honey.

I received a call on Wednesday night from a man who noticed bees coming and going out of a small hole in the oil pan of one of his Cummins Diesel engines.

Wanting to sell the engine for scrap metal, he needed the bees removed first. For most bee removals I am assisted by my father-in-law, Bill Henness of Paris, Illinois. Bill makes our bee-vac that we sell and works in our hive production as well. Our bee-vacs are wonderful. It sucks the bees into a screen cage and the air suction can be adjusted so that it does not injure the bee. Then, the cage can be pulled out of the vac so that the bees can be transported safely to their new location.

At 8:00 a.m. Bill and I met the man and his father, the owner of the engine and the unwanted bees. He used a sledge hammer to break open the aluminum oil pan, and sure enough, there the bees were, on a cold November morning, clustered together over their comb.

We take a lot of calls like this, almost one per day in the Spring and early summer when swarms are more common. You will too, when people learn that you are a beekeeper. Since it was around 40 degrees the bees were very calm and on the comb. I started sucking them into the cage, peeling back the comb and revealing more bees along the way. Finally after about an hour, I had removed all the comb and captured all the bees. And as par for the course, we spend the next half hour answering honeybee questions.

This was the wrong time to remove a hive. There was only about 2 lbs of bees and they had very little hone in their comb. But, the engine had to go for scrap the next day. It is normally best to remove a hive in the Spring, so they can have time to build up their new home with comb and gather enough nectar throughout the year to carry them through winter. This hive could never get ready for winter now. So, I combined them with another hive.

On site, back at the engine, I tested the hive for American Foul Brood, sacbrood and chalk brood and saw no signs. I inspected many bees for mites and found none. No deformed wings, so that’s why I decided to add them to one of my other hives.

When combining bees like this, it is best to place a piece of newspaper between the two different sets of bees. Otherwise, they will fight each other because the main hive will view the new bees as robbers. But, by placing a newspaper barrier between the bees with a few holes in it, the bees will eat through the paper and by time they meet, they will live happily ever after or at least for 30 days, the normal lifespan of a worker bee.

Swarms are easier to capture than removing an existing hive. Swarms usually have no comb, and are just a huge pile of bees hanging from a tree, car bumper, fence post, bird house or as in this picture, a porch on a beautiful house. A swarm is the natural way hives multiply. This happens predominately in late April, May and throughout the month of June.

In our bee yards it’s RED ALERT during the months of May and June. We try to capture our own swarms. Swarms are not aggressive; they usually don’t sting because they are full of honey for their journey and they have no honey or brood in a comb to protect. They are simply out shopping for a new house.

When I experimented with Russian queens, I found that they have a greater propensity to swarm. In fact, I had one hive swarm several times in two day. Sound impossible? A swarm is when the old queen leaves with half the hive. However, after the main swarm, there can be “afterswarms”. This is when virgin queens swarm with smaller amounts of bees from the hive.

You might be wondering why a swarm would hang from a tree, and just sit there doing nothing. The main reason is that the scouts are out, looking for a nice place to make their final home. That’s the beekeeper’s tricky job, to capture the swarm before the scouts return and to make sure the scouts cannot fine the newly captured hive.

It is common for a beekeeper to capture a swarm by shaking the swarm into a hive, and then leave the hive below the tree until dark. The problem is, the scouts can find their hive, enter it, convince the swarm there is a better place, and soon they will leave the hive. So, capture and move it once they are all in.

In this picture, notice the swarm hanging just above the deep hive body sitting on a bottom board? Now, all I do is give the branch a hard shake and all the bees and queen drop in the box. If they don’t? Just do it again, only harder!

Keeping a swarm in their new hive box is tricky too. Here’s what I do. I save drawn comb just for the capture. Drawn comb is another best friend of a beekeeper. Swarms will stay better if there is drawn comb, and a lot better if you can add a frame of brood from another hive. I spray the foundation with sugar water too. What bee would leave a sugar coated comb? I also restrict the opening down to only a small, small opening where only one or two bees can get through at a time. It’s hard to swarm again if everyone has to go single file through the door. Keep it this way for at least 24 hours. My son will keep his captured swarm hives completely closed the rest of the day, and through the night.

Some tips on capturing a swarm:

1) When you get a call, ask good questions. Ask how large the swarm is, by having the caller compare it to a soft ball size, foot ball size, bowling ball size or beach ball size. This will help you know what to take. Also, ask how high the swarm is off the ground.

2) Have equipment ready like a fireman. You’ll need a spare hive! Please don’t call us and ask us to send you a hive in 2 hours! Have an extra one on hand. It’s an extra expense, but you save by not having to buy bees! You’ll also need sugar water to spray the new frames. Have the sugar water already mixed and in a spray bottle. You’ll also need ropes to possibly tie off limbs, a nice limb saw, gloves because some tree sap is sticky when you cut the limbs and a secure way to tie down the hive box you are transporting home. You don’t want the hive bouncing apart in the back of your truck, only to find all the bees are gone when you get home with your captured swarm. I keep my swarm supplies in a big army ammo container so that I can grab it and run. I also keep my ladder in my truck from late April through May. It takes too long to load it and strap it down.

3) Warn Bystanders. The home owner or bystanders will gather to watch. Although swarms are not aggressive and usually do not sting, they are bees with stingers. I always warn bystanders to back away or watch from their car or bedroom window. Your work will most certainly draw a crowd.

4) Be Careful. Don’t try to climb the highest tree or put yourself in danger. Some swarms are way up in the tops of trees. The most dangerous aspect of swarm capture is the climb! Be careful!

5) Work fast, but not hurried. The bees are waiting for scouts to take them to a better home. Or the queen may have become too tired on their way to the better home and they may just be taking a break, a quick break!

6) Retrieval. Shake, cut or vac? You’ll have to make important decisions once you see how the swarm is positioned. You’ll have to decide whether to climb into the tree, or use a ladder or you may be fortunate enough to simply have the swarm at waist level. Then, you’ll have to decide if you can shake the branch or cut it. If the swarm will fall directly into the box without having to fall through other branches, then by all means shake! If not, and they are on a small branch, cut the branch and carry it down to the box. This is really dangerous and takes a lot of balance and strength. Some swarms can be very heavy. This is where your ropes come in handy. Before cutting someone else’s tree, ask permission. Explain the size of the branch so they will not be surprised when their beautifully shaped tree now looks like the cookie monster took a bite out of it.

When swarms are on buildings, cars and permanent structures, you have to use a bee-vac. You will never scrape them all off or get the queen. I’ve tried! It’s like pushing a chain uphill. But, with a bee-vac, you simply vacuum them safely into a cage. A bee-vac is the second most important tool to the beekeeper, second to the hive tool, in my opinion.

7) Place the captured swarm box in its new location ASAP. Though you must allow adequate time for the swarm to work its way into the box, you must move it to its new location as soon as possible. There is a good chance that the swarm has a plan, a planned place to go. You’ve got your work cut out to disrupt that and convince them to go where you want them to go and to stay.

The white sheet approach. Using a white sheet works! It seems to help the bees notice the dark entrance to the hive box you are using. I rarely use a white sheet. Once I removed a swarm from garden. I placed a hive box on the ground very close to the hive. They begin walking in. It took around 30 minutes for the swarm to finally walk into the hive, and at the end of the 30 minutes, I observed the queen walking in.

How to prevent swarms in your own hives

Swarm prevention is vital for a good honey production year. Swarming is a natural instinctive behavior and is how a mature hive multiplies into two hives. Attempting to prevent a swarm is a challenge, and sometimes after doing everything to prevent a swarm, they still swarm. If a hive swarms and 50% of the hive leaves, then it will unlikely be able to produce a good honey crop that same year due to the reduction in bees. If you are fortunate enough to capture the swarm, the good news is that you now have two hives, but the bad news is, neither will provide a honey crop that year. You can usually place the swarm back into the hive it came from, and the swarming instinct will have been satisfied.

So, the best honey crop comes from operating a hive slightly below the swarm congested level, while preventing a swarm.

Congestion vs. Crowded –you need open cells!

Many beekeepers have been taught to provide more space in the hive to prevent swarms but this is only partially true. Placing a super of undrawn foundation on the hive will not help if you’ve waited too long. Hives swarm because of congestion and overcrowding and more so from congestion. Congestion means that there is incoming nectar and pollen in large quantities, and the queen is laying well, thus there are not enough empty cells to accommodate the need. This is why undrawn foundation (more space) does not always help. They need drawn comb with open cells, not just more space. Sometimes, you can pull out a frame or two of brood from the brood nest area and add two frames of either drawn or undrawn foundation, and this might be a temporary solution. But by this time, you may have waited too long.

Remove swarm queen cells. The obvious swarm sign is the presence of queen swarm cells. These queen cells are called swarm cells because the are usually located on the lower section of a frame in the brood chamber. You can tilt back a deep hive body and look for these swarm queen cells hanging from the bottom of the frames. Another type of queen cell is the superseding queen cell, which is located higher up on the drawn comb. A superseding queen cell means that the old queen is being replaced because she is not productive or injured or dead. Leave these superseding cells alone! The bees know what they are doing, and why they need this replacement. But, if you want to try and prevent swarms, remove the swarm queen cells from the bottom of the frames.

What do queen cells look like? They are shaped like peanuts and hang out either from the foundation, as with superseding cells, or they hang from the bottom of a frame, as with swarm cells. They are about the size of the first joint on your little finger.

I usually save the cells in a mason jar with air holes in the lid, keeping them in a warm spot in the house, just in case I need a queen. I also have several small hives (nucs) that I store these queens in. It’s cheaper than buying queens. Sometimes, I’ll have two or three jars full of queen cells on the kitchen table. I’ll wake up and while eating breakfast, watch a queen emerge, then take her to her nuc box using a queen cage, slow introduction method.

In closing, I’ve got to tell you about my swarm capture stocking cap! I got the idea from reading what Langstroth did in his bee yards. He would hang dark woolly items from trees, so that a swarm would light where he had placed the item, instead of high up in the tree. I use a black stocking cap, fill it full of cloth, and hand them around my bee yards. It may not work every time, but when it does, it sure makes the capture much easier. To the bee, the dark, swarm shaped stocking cap looks like the place where other bees have landed.

In our next lesson, I’ll explain how to split or divide a hive in the Spring to prevent swarming as well.

Honey from different nectar sources can have different moisture contents. Clover honey is around 23% and is perfectly good honey with this level of moisture. However, other honey will ferment at 23%. In fact, moisture levels higher than 21%, other than the honey where this is permissible, is not fit for sale. Honey is hygroscopic which means it can easily absorb moisture from the air around it. But, if the air is dry, then honey will lose moisture, thus improving its quality.

Thanks for joining me today for another lesson in keeping bees.

If you are new to beekeeping, I recommend you start off processing your honey with one of our new hot knifes(around $100), that cuts the cappings off, opening up the comb so the honey can be drawn out. Then, it is best to use an extractor. You don’t have to. You can let it drain out or press it out, but if you can afford to invest in a new hand crank extractor (around $300), it will make the job much easier.

We’ll it has been good to be with you again, and I look forward to sharing the next lesson with you in the next few days.