For many honey bee management challenges, there appear to be a number of solutions. It is not uncommon at bee meetings for practitioners to trot out the best techniques that “have worked for them.” Often lost in the cacophony however is the universal technology of simply changing the queen. Requeening can provide a great many benefits to both the beekeeper and honey bee colony. See a discussion on “sustainable beekeeping” using both nuclei and requeening. See Roger Patterson’s advice on the subject and Dave Cushman’s various uses of requeening in honey bee management.
A corollary to this topic is rearing queens to get the most out of one’s local beekeeping stock. See contributor Dave Cushman’s take on this important topic. Finally look at Michael Palmer’s take on this important issue.
