Norfolk Honey - old queens
Old queens
As the beekeeping season progresses I often have some previous year's
queens available for sale. These are queens that that I don't need anymore.
They are laying queens that have been taken out of one of my established colonies
to
be replaced by new
queens.
They are marked with
the
previous
year's
colour
(2010 queens are marked blue). Some beekeepers kill old queens to replace them
with new ones. I only kill queens when I have to - if they turn drone laying
for example.
Why should you want an old queen?
Sometimes mistakes happen and a queen gets damaged or lost. During the height of the season it easy enough to replace your queen by breeding a new one, (see queen breeding) buying one in or by simply leaving your bees to get on with ire-queening themselves. However, if it is early or late in the year and you can't buy a new queen and the weather isn't suitable for queen rearing your choices are much more limited. If you have more than one hive you can merge two colonies together and wait until next year or later in the year to split them up again. But if you have just one hive you can't do that and without a queen your colony is not going to thrive or even exist for very long. In these circumstances any old queen is a good queen.
More about old queens
Just because a queen is old it doesn't follow that she is in anyway inferior.
Indeed many of my old queens are old because they are good queens and the bees
are happy to keep them going. I remove them because I want new queens in strong
colonies as early in the season as I can. I take the old queen out as a nuc
and put her in another brood box draining off the flying bees. Given a little
feed she will soon build up a new colony. If the bees don't like her they may
supercede her. If they like her she will still be there in the Autumn and go
through the winter to the start of another season. If a queen survives into
a third year and continues to lay well then she may be worth breeding
from as queens are generally becoming short lived in recent years.
An old queen - £40 (collection from Norwich only) Please
give me as much prior notice as you can.
For more info on rearing new queens please see my queen breeding page