MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

234 DR. miller'shappen that the bees start to supersede a queen without swarming,and then conditions for swarming turn so favorable that theyswarm. Again, bees may prepare to swarm, when conditions forswarming turn so unfavorable that they give up swarming. Inthat case they may simply destroy the cells and allow the oldqueen to continue, or they may supersede the old queen. If, duringthe swarming time, you find queen-cells, you may be almostsure it means swarming. If cells are found somewhat out of thetime when most colonies are swarming, you can only make aguess in the case. If the number of cells is small—not more thanthree or four—and especially if the queen is old, it is likely tomean superseding. For swarming, a larger number of cells willgenerally be found.Q. Will a good colony supersede its worn-out queen, or is itnot best to introduce a new queen at least every three years?A. Opinions are divided. It is possible that locality may havesomething to do in the case, as it has in so many other cases. Inthis locality it is as well to leave the matter to the bees, generally,although it pays any time to supplant a poor queen with a goodone, even if the poor one is only a month old.Q. In Doolittle's "Queen-Rearing," page 111, he says: "Tosupersede a queen, hatch a young queen in an upper story over azinc excluder, and after she is hatched remove the excluder, andyour old queen is superseded." Will the plan work invariably?A. No; and I do not think Air. Doolittle claims invariable success.Remember that in the natural course of events every queenis superseded by the bees, and that such a superseding usually occurssomewhere in the neighborhood of the close of the harvest.Now, when any colony has a queen that it is about to supersede,if you will get in a little ahead by having over the excluder a virginbefore one has been reared below, you may be practicallycertain of success. If you do the same thing earlier in the season,especially where a vigorous queen is doing duty below, you mayexpectfailure.Q. Yesterday (Feb. VJ) was the warmest day we have hadhere this winter, 60 degrees in the shade for the greatest part ofthe day. I took my bees (ten colonies) out of the cellar for aflight, and found on looking them over that one colony had apatch of drone-brood about 3 inches in diameter, partly cappedover on both sides of one comb. I found some worker-brood inthe rest of the hives, but this one had none. I found the queenbut she looked more like a virgin than a fertile queen. Do beessupersede their queen in winter?