Introducing a Queen

ALL TO DO WITH PHEROMONES

The successful introduction of a queen is related to the accpetance of a new odour by the colony. Everything inside the hive is governed by chemical signals called pheromones, that result from the mandibles, tarsal glands located at the end of the bee's legs and tergites glands located on the back of the abdomen.

It is through them that the queen inhibits the development of the workers' ovaries.

In general, when a colony is producing honey (honey flow), a queen is more easily accepted. This means that in case of a shortage of honey, it is necessary to feed in order to facilitate acceptance, but despite all this, precautions are necessary:

The introduction of a queen must be done at the end of the day, and it is always better to work on smaller populations to ensure the absence of the queen bee, eliminating the old queen if possible, allow the workers to adjust to the new queen by protecting her in a wire cage to ensure proper dissemination of royal pheromones in the colony, to reduce the hive's entrance to reduce looting, and to not make an introduction in the presence of treatment strips against the varroa. The failure rate is generally higher in the introduction of the queen than when she mates.