Figure 5.32 An example of “spotty brood.” Although beekeepers often blame the queen for this condition, it may or may not have anything to do with her.
More often, spotty brood becomes normal as the season progresses, due to poor nutrition, disease, or parasitism by varroa (Figure 5.32).
Spotty brood is caused by larval mortality due to dearth or poor nutrition, European Foulbrood (EFB), Chalkbrood, a virus, toxic pollen, or pesticide or miticide contamination of the combs. Far too many queens are unnecessarily replaced due to problems not of their own fault. But if a queen is over a year old, she may be starting to run out of viable spermatozoa.
Practical application: There's not much that one can do about Chalkbrood, but EFB can be cleared up with oxytetracycline. Give the queen a fresh comb to lay on, in order to see whether comb contamination or disease is the problem. If the spotty brood persists, then replace the queen.
Queen Replacement and Introduction
Since queens tend to begin to fail in their second season, most professional beekeepers replace them annually, instead of taking the chance of successful supersedure. A colony going into the winter with an aged queen is a recipe for disaster.
Practical application: colonies tend to perform and survive better if they have young queens.
Identifying and Locating the Queen
Although beginning beekeepers always want to “see the queen” (Figure 5.33) in truth, it is rarely necessary to observe the queen directly in order to determine her status.
Figure 5.33 The queen is most often to be found on a brood frame, and not surprisingly, most often on one containing fresh eggs. But she will also sometimes be found on an outside frame, or even on the wall of the hive.
Tips for finding the queen:
It is difficult to see queens when you are wearing a veil (sorry, that is just a fact).
Check the brood frames first.
As you pull out the frame, look down the face at an oblique angle – the queen stands somewhat taller than the workers.
Glance at the face of the next frame in the hive, I often spot the queen there.
The queen is far easier to spot in the first 5 seconds than she is after 10 seconds after being disturbed, so first glance quickly at both sides of the frame.
Hold the frame in front of you, with good lighting, hold your eyes steady, and move the frame in a rectangular motion in front of your stationary eyes (rather than moving your eyes).
Train your eye to recognize the queen's abdomen, more angular “hips,” a possible retinue of attendants, and her longer (and often light‐colored) legs.
Handling the Queen
A queen will only sting another queen – they can be safely handled with bare fingers. They should never be handled through gloves, due to the loss of delicate touch. To prevent damaging her delicate ovaries, avoid ever touching her abdomen. To pick up a queen, approach her from the rear, and gently pinch her wings together (Figure 5.34).
There is likely little reason for a vet to handle a client's queens. But you may get a call about a queen suddenly dropping dead while being handled. It is a relatively common behavior for a queen to play possum when handled, but very alarming to the novice (Figure 5.35).
Figure 5.34 Queens are typically held by both wings. If you only get one wing, release her before she wrenches around and hurts herself.
Figure 5.35 Even when gently handled, some queens may play possum. Do not let this scare you – simply return her to her bees on a frame held horizontally, and she will soon “come to.”
If a queen is disturbed, she may start “running,” causing her own workers to attack her. To prevent this, if I am going to be disturbing a colony greatly, I will often temporarily place the queen in a queen cage, returning her to the colony when I'm finished (Figure 5.36).
Introduction of Queens
There are a million suggestions for introducing queens. In general:
Remove the old queen and wait a day.
If the replacement queen is closely related, and in laying condition, she can be successfully introduced at the entrance with a few puffs of white smoke.Figure 5.36 Placing a queen headfirst into a queen cage for her own protection, to be used to release her back into the colony after it has been put back together. I will plug the end with a miniature marshmallow or piece of green leaf, which then allows the colony to calm down by the time the bees have chewed their way through the plug.Figure 5.37 Bee behavior indicating acceptance of a caged queen. The bees will be moving over the screen, offering the queen food, and can be easily brushed away with a finger. Once you observe this behavior, it is safe to remove the cover from the candy plug, in order to allow the workers to release the queen some time after you have closed the hive back up. Then replace the still‐plugged cage into the hive with the screen exposed to the workers.
Requeening via the insertion of queen cells into a queenright hive has been shown again and again not to be successful.
For extremely valuable queens, use a push‐in cage, or better yet, introduce her first into a nuc containing only brood and nurse bees.
Otherwise, introduce her in a queen cage with a candy plug, pushed into a brood frame (but not into honey, which may drown her).
Releasing any attendants from the queen cage will greatly improve success at introduction. Do so in an enclosed area to avoid having a queen fly off (although if you hold still, she may return to the cage).Figure 5.38 Bees that are not accepting a queen. These workers are attempting to bite and “ball” the queen. They will be biting the screen and cannot be easily moved away with a finger. Such behavior generally means that there is already another queen in the hive, or that the queen in the cage has a very different odor than the “colony