Requeening over a laying worker?

[romduck]

Of my two hives, one superceded a poor queen and is now going gangbusters.

The other one that started out great in the Spring is now led by a laying worker. Loads of drones in the hive and nothing but capped drone cells for brood.

I know that I'll have to order a new queen and requeen this hive, but with all the talk of recent difficulties with re-queening I'd like to give her the best shot.

I understand that to get rid of the laying worker, I'll have to shake out the hive >100yds away.

How long before I re-queen should this be done?

Should I wait until I'm about to put the new queen or should I shake and then let the field bees get settled back in their hive for a certain amount of time.

I've read up on the general re-queening procedure but this is the first time that I'm re-queening for any reason so any input would be greatly appreciated.

THanks.

[stilllearning]

the calmer bees will more easily accept the new queen
overnight will give them time to calm down and realize they are
queenless

[Michael Bush]

>I know that I'll have to order a new queen and requeen this hive, but with all the talk of recent difficulties with re-queening I'd like to give her the best shot.

She doesn't have much of a shot at all.

>I understand that to get rid of the laying worker, I'll have to shake out the hive >100yds away.

It doesn't matter.  The laying workers always come back anyway.  All the latest research has proved this and all my experience would concur.  All it does, if you leave the old equipment there, is demoralize them enough to improve (but certainly not guarentee) your chances of them accepting a queen.

>How long before I re-queen should this be done?

I don't think it matters.  They are already queenless.  I'd say sooner is better than later, but I would put the odds that it will fail regardless.

The only sucess I've really had is to either give them some brood once a week for a couple of weeks and then introduce a new queen (and don't bother to shake them out) or put a queenright nuc over a double screen so they can smell the open brood and get used to the smell of the queen.  After a couple of weeks do a newspaper combine.

But my REAL advice is move all the equipement and shake out all the bees and give the combs to your other hives and call it a loss.  The bees will find their way into other hives and your problem will be solved without wasting several queens and a lot of your work.

[Michael Bush]

*Duplicate deleted*

[romduck]

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate the info.

I'll probably give requeening a shot anyway, just for the experience.

If the hive gives her a hard time, I'm not going to beat my head against the wall, I'll just write that hive off rather than spend alot of time and effort to get it queenright and then prepped for Winter.

I'll repost with results.