switching from qeenless to queenright

[gmcharlie]

Thanks to ROBO  TWT and Michael   for all the comments and help so far............ going to try queens myself this year as well as some purchesed.......   I  have one more question about useing the cloake board queen starter/ finisher.  I get the make it queen less  by  putting her in the bottom and such  and after the cells are capped  make them queen right again as  a finisher  (which I am not sure why not leave them queenless as they finish)    but my real question is when you make them queenright again do you need an excluder to keep the old queen from destroying the cells???   I read   some comments on another site about only virgin queens being on a hunt a estroy mission?    or do we keep her locked below?

[Robo]

The cloake board has a queen excluder built in.

[Michael Bush]

>when you make them queenright again do you need an excluder to keep the old queen from destroying the cells??? 

She MIGHT not, but then again, her presence may stimulate the workes to.  I find it best to have an excluder.  Most of the ones for sale seem to have them built in as Robo says.  Mine does not and I put one a box below the FWOF.

[TwT]

yup I use a excluder.

[gmcharlie]

Thanks guys... I generaly hate excluders  but for a cpl weeks........    What is the point of makeing them queenright again instead of just splitting them off and leaving them with one of the new queens?

[Michael Bush]

>What is the point of makeing them queenright again instead of just splitting them off and leaving them with one of the new queens?

Morale.  A cell builder will maintain morale if they are only queenless a short time.  You can then use the same cell builder again and again.  If you leave them queenless, they are only good for one shot and you really hurt the production of that hive.

[gmcharlie]

understood about the moral  thing if your doing multiple batches......   my thought was to use those same bees as basis for the breeding nucs....  IE  they get to go with the new queens.   with that plan I didn't see the point in makeing them queenright,  then splitting them off for the breeders again...  seemed to me like that would be confusing.....  first a queen then not....  then a new one....

I was (still am until I get a better idea)  on takeing 2 frames of honey and brood comb(empty)  and one of the new queens  from the hive I used as a finisher....  makeing 5-10 breeder nucs with the new queens and a 2 frames of bees from that same hive.

[Michael Bush]

The population also dwindles while they are queenless.

[gmcharlie]

is that just the normal die off thats not replaced?  or more than is normal??

[TwT]

ok think of this in the spring time with a bee hive, if a queen can lay 1500-2500 eggs a day then that means you could lose 1500-2500 a day when they reach that age, think of it that way, with nothing to replace it instantly then that's your lose rate per day, they can go down quick.

[Michael Bush]

>is that just the normal die off thats not replaced?  or more than is normal??

Probably a little of both the normal die off and some drifting to queenright hives.

[gmcharlie]

understood..   I realize the normal loss for that time period is unavoidable......  I assume the old queen is still laying in her particular box. so its still growing.   I was struggling on the reasons to make them queenright when I am going to split them all up again when the queens are ready anyway.   my goal  (on this hive)  is a very rapid split,   with 6-8 nucs started from it and the new queens they were raising.  The old quenn was is such a profilic layer,  I intend to knok her back to a cpl of frames of brood and teh field bees.


Thanks guys,  your comments make a lot of sense....   this queen raising seems like its going to be fun.

Charlie

[bugleman]

Lurk....Lurk....Lurk!