How to combine a queen right nucleus colony to a queenless hive - 25/7/24

Hello everyone,

I thought I'd focus this week's short form video on a technique I use a lot.

Adding a new queen in a queen cage to a queenless colony is fraught with danger. This is because the queen in the cage has shrunk due to not laying for a while and, in turn, doesn't release the "laying" pheromone that identifies her as a well mated queen.

There are a few ways to get around this to improve your success. One way is to get a large push in cage that you sandwich the queen in. You try to place the cage over capped and emerging brood. That way, the newly emerging brood will automatically accept the queen (as they know no different) and will start to look after her.

The queen will then start to lay in the newly vacated cells, giving off the "laying" pheromones, and will then be more likely accepted by the whole colony.

The technique I focus on in this video is an even easier method of getting your queen accepted. A nucleus colony, no matter the size, has already accepted their queen, so will happily spread her pheromones amongst other bees they meet. The queen is also laying up a storm, so her "laying" pheromones are really strong.

All of this makes it much more likely for your new queen to be accepted.

I hope you enjoy the video!

Hope you're safe and well
Greg

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