Will My Bees Accept This Queen | How To Introduce High Value Queens Safely

Today I'm requeening this colony here with a very expensive breeder queen. Now this colony started off life as a starter finisher colony, a colony that I used to raise my queen cells. I've done a feature-length video showing you how to do that, and this is the follow-on from that video. So if you're wondering how we got there, I'll link you out at the end of this video and show you a brilliant video on how we raise our queens. And the first step of us raising brilliant queens is starting with exceptional genetics. That is what we're doing in this video here today. We're converting a starter finisher colony like this into a world-class breeder queen colony. So start to finish, what is it? I built this colony up to have an amazing abundance of young nurse bees. They've created lots of queen cells for me, but we've come to the end of the road with this one. I only use them for about 10 days before dismantling them. But instead of dismantling them, what you can do is you can requeen them, or you can just leave a cell in here, or you can put in a really top-quality breeder queen, knowing that this is going to be pretty much your safest bet for a good introduction. This colony here, Now that those cells are out, is instantly hopelessly queenless. We've got all the resources we need here. We've got stores, carbohydrate, protein, and a copious amount of young bees. And young bees is what you need in order to get a really successful introduction. So I did jump the gun a little bit, and I already put the queen in here just to keep the bees happy. Let me go over to the macro camera and show you close up what this queen is like. Now I'm not sure the bees are even going to let you have a look at this queen covered All the way around with young nurse bees. Now we got this from a contact in Germany, an exceptional German breeder, and although we bought this as a breeder queen, not really a breeder queen. People tell you it's a breeder queen, but it's not. This is a blue queen. It's 2025, so how on earth can this be a breeder queen? But it's still an expensive queen nonetheless, and it has the potential to be a breeder. But we need to do some testing first. So we are in July in 2025, and I have this very expensive German artificially inseminated breeder queen. I'm going to place it in here. We're going to requeen this colony. We're going to do all of this in this video, so don't go anywhere. We're going to get it through the end of 2025. We're going to build it up for winter. We'll give it its Varroa treatments, feed it up, get it through to 2026. Then we're going to graft from it. We're going to take some daughters. We'll test those daughters, assess them. I'll show you what they're like. And then maybe, maybe in 2027, this here will be our breeder queen. So the queen's already been in there for 24 hours. I've come back 24 hours later, and I'm just going to pop that tab off. And then I'm just going to leave the bees to it. I'm not going to go back in and check for another 7 days, but after 7 days I'll come back and hopefully we'll see the queen out on the cells and she'll be laying lots and lots of eggs. So my fondant tab is now removed and I'm just going to place that really gently down in between 2 brood frames, close everything up nice and tight. You don't need to hang them, they do just stay put. So you can see pretty much away the attention that that queen is getting, all of those nurse bees running over fighting to tend to her. Because that pheromone is going to be nothing like they've ever experienced before. All I've done there is take away all of their queen cells and instantly they want to get that queen out. So the queen's inside. I'm going to get my feeder back on now. I'll be back in 7 days and we'll see if this queen is out on the frames. So it's been 7 days. Let's get inside, see if this queen's been released. Hopefully we find her on the frames and fingers crossed we see eggs. So my cage is still in position, not really been propolised. Bees aren't paying a huge amount of attention to it. It either means it's been a dramatic failure or a huge success. I think we're gonna find this queen on the frames. So let's get the cage out and see what is inside. So just shaking the bees off there. There are a few bees inside, but luckily there is no queen. So there's my cage. You can see the bees have eaten all the way through. And then when I open it up, all we've got inside is a few bees. So the queen is either dead or she's happy in the hive. Hopefully it's the latter. So the queen has been released. She's gonna be somewhere on these frames. There are so many nurse bees in here though. This literally is the perfect colony to set up an introduction like this. Let's get inside and see if we can find that queen. So first frame is just stores, lots of young, nice nurse bees, but no eggs, no sign of the queen. So nothing on that first frame, but I can tell by the colony's behavior that this queen has definitely been accepted. When you get failed introductions, they get a little bit tetchy, even when they're calm bees. These bees here have purpose, and I just know we're going to find that queen. So second frame there, you can see again lots of stores, lots of nectar, huge amount of bees. Look how calm they are on the comb as I'm moving that round. None of them coming up at all. This is what you want from your bees. So we'll take a look at the third frame now. And it looks like we're getting closer to the brood nest now because there's lots more open cells. If I had to guess, I think we'll find the queen on the next couple of frames. So this next frame here is a pollen frame. Can't see any eggs or the queen on this one, but we're definitely getting close. So next frame along, still no sign of her. I have to say, I thought I would find her on this frame here. She probably just set up camp on another side. You can see though, look how many lovely young nurse bees are on this frame here, giving that queen a wonderful welcome. So I was just about to say I couldn't find her, but here she is on this frame, a pure Buckfast German queen that we're going to test and see if we can turn her into a breeder. So there she is close up. You can see fully accepted, the bees moving out of her way. Always like to see that. Very slow moving. I'm really excited to see what her offspring can do. So the queen is on this frame here. I'm going to get her safely back into the hive, and I just want to do a quick check for some eggs. So I've done my check. I cannot see any eggs yet. Nothing to worry about if you're in this situation. It could take a few weeks for a queen, a caged queen, to come back into lay. If you find yourself with that issue, do what I'm going to do here. Add in some 1:1 sugar syrup, just a tiny bit, couple of litres. Turbocharges the colony, and it will get that queen laying. I'll give it another couple of weeks. In 2 weeks, and we'll come back, check for eggs, check for brood, and check all is okay. So I've got my smoker lit. The queen last week had laid some eggs, but now it's time to go in and see what that brood pattern is looking like. So the last time we were here, we added this additional brood box on, not because I wanted the bees to expand, but because I didn't want the bees to be restricted for space. So I'm not worried that the bees aren't going to be working up here. It's more of a buffer for this period of the year, and if they don't use it, I can take it away. So all I'm going to do to start off is just take off that top brood box, which is pretty much empty, and we'll place it over here. But as you can see, a very nice, big, strong, healthy colony of bees. Very calm, these ones here. And all I'm looking for today is I want to see signs of capped worker brood. We don't need to see the queen. I'm not looking for eggs. I know this queen is going to be a good one. And there we go. That is exactly what I wanted to see. A nice tight cluster of capped worker brood. That queen is fully accepted now. I'm just going to leave them to it. I'm going to get these colony of bees ready for winter. So we successfully introduced an artificially inseminated queen into this colony. They're not trying to supersede her. The queen is out on the frames laying eggs, which is being turned into capped worker brood. Once I've fed this colony and put the varroa treatments in, they are ready for winter. So this is where the video ends. The queen is now accepted by the colony. She's laid eggs and we've got capped worker brood. I'm going to feed this colony. I'm going to treat them for varroa. Get them ready for winter. But the story does not end here. Next year, we'll be grafting from this queen, testing out the daughters, and seeing just how good these bees really are.