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Jimbo
09-07-2010, 10:27 PM
I think I may have an agressive queen in one of my new colonies. The book say remove her and replace with another queen.
I have heard that if you remove her into a matchbox and remove a gentle queen also into a matchbox and swap them and introduce them to each others colonies the agressive queen goes gentle.
Anybody got any ideas or tried something different?
To me this should not work but a very experienced Irish beekeeper (the one who covers himself in bees for fun) swears by this method.
I may give it a go as I have some spare queens to requeen if it does not work
Will report back on the result.

Jimbo

Calum
10-07-2010, 01:15 AM
yes an old Irish tale indeed.
My experience is that an 'agressive' queen will affect the mood off her bees.
So putting a gentle queen amongst aggressive bees will clam them some what.
Putting an agressive queen in with gentle bees will not improve the dna she is carrying. After six weeks the new have will become aggressive as her daughters relace the placid bees as the die off.
Taking a risk that neither hive kills the foreign queen. Worst case you loose both queens!