New Queens

[lilyfrog]

Hi All,

What is everyones thoughts on re-queening.

I replace my queens every christmas / new years week every year with out fail.

what does every one else do?

[Lone]

LF

I've personally had only bad experiences installing bought queens so at the moment I'm letting them supercede, or introducing eggs if they look queenless.  Besides which, there have hardly been queens available at the times I've wanted to buy them.

I might revise this if they chase me round and round the shed like the first hive I was given which hadn't been requeened for at least 5 years.

How many did you requeen last week and where did you buy them?  Did you use Covey's?

Lone

[lilyfrog]

Hi Lone,

12 queens,
I use Howard Kirby, He is happy to post or I collect as he is only an hour from me, I collected them tuesday evening this week from him.

I have gone this year will all golden italians, I Have used Des covey northen qld before, but I could not get any this year, and his brother John at jimboomba, didn't respond either. (Covey's do Mountain greys (caucasians) )

HK supplies a commercial guy I do work exp with and both my hives and the commercial hives they are quiet but productive.
this will be my first season of non mixed queens

cheers
Mark

[squidink]

I use Howard Kirby's queens as well. They are good producers and nice and quiet. I like getting the queens marked with a white spot as it makes it heaps easier to find her. If i get around to it i requeen evry year.

Ben

[Mardak]

I do splits every second year when I have good queens for temper and laying patterns. This helps keep the ongoing costs down and when I buy queens I look for introducing different types. The mail is very reliable and quick nowadays.

[yantabulla]

G'day Mark,

There is nothing wrong with re-queening every year however it is probably not necessary.

You are probably killing productive queens to introduce the new ones.

You're working 12 hives so you have some resources available.

Have you thought about raising your own queens from your best performing hives & maybe buying a few queens in every year to keep your genetics diverse.

It's not hard to do & you'll learn a lot about bees in the process

Yanta