Requeening is the process of replacing a colony's queen. There are many approaches to requeening. A beekeeper may want to requeen for several reasons:

• Failing Queen: The current queen is either not producing enough queen pheromone or not optimally laying eggs
• Genetics: The current queen's genetics are not desirable
• Pest Mitigation: Control of certain pests, like varroa, can be aided by queen replacement

Ways to Requeen

There are three common queen rearing methods. Please note the procedures we offer are guidelines and are not intended to be the only successful way of doing things. It is important to understand the why behind each step. This allows you to be adaptable (because often things don't go to plan) and capable of developing your own evidence-based strategies.

• Foreign Queen Addition

• Step	Summary	Procedure	Explanation
  1	Queen Removal	Find and remove the current queen. You may want to store for education and outreach.	The colony is stable with only one queen, hence the current queen needs to be removed before a new one is introduced.
  2	Wait	2 days for non-defensive hives and 5-7 days for defensive hives.	The colony is given time to realize it is queenless which makes them more likely to accept the new queen.
  3	Add New Queen	Locate and remove all queen cells. Place plugged queen cage with new queen in the center of the hive between frames with screen facing up.	The new queen is temporarily protected from rejection by placing in cage. The cage allows bees to interact with the new queen's mouthparts and antennae but prevents balling and stinging.
  4	Wait	2 days for non-defensive hives and 5-7 days for defensive hives.	The colony is given time to acclimate to accept the new queen's pheromones.
  5	Free New Queen	Open hive and observe behavior towards new queen If defensive behavior is sill being exhibited towards the queen, leave her untouched and check for and remove all queen cells. Repeat Step 4. If no defensive behavior is exhibited towards new queen, remove the plug to the queen cage.

• Queen Cell Addition

• Step	Summary	Procedure	Explanation
  1	Stimulate Queen Cell Production	Temporarily remove a queen from the desired donor colony.	Removing the queen stimulates the building of queen cells because the colony wants a new queen.
  2	Queen Removal	Remove the queen from the recipient colony.
  3	Wait	Wait 1 day.	The colony is given time to realize it is queenless which makes them more likely to accept the new queen.
  4	Transplant Queen Cell	Harvest queen cell from donor colony. Either swap whole frame or cut cell off and press into recipient colony.

• Self-Production

• Step	Summary	Procedure	Explanation
  1	Queen Removal	Remove the queen. Ensure young brood is present. If not, swap a frame with a frame from another (desirable) colony with young brood (<36 hrs old).	Young brood is required because there is a finite window in development that determines whether a female bee becomes a worker or queen. If all the larvae are old, they are already determined to be workers and there is no opportunity to become queens. The younger the larvae are to be destined to become a queen, the higher the queen quality becomes.
  2	Wait	Wait 2 days.	The colony is given time to build queen cells.
  3	Check	Check to confirm queen cells are being built. If not, ensure there is enough young brood present.

Post Requeening

• Monitor food stores and feed if needed
• Ensure new eggs are being laid. If not, you may need to requeen again.
• For the next month be on the lookout for supercedure cells and destroy them.

Hazards

Several common hazards present themselves when beekeepers requeen:

• Hopelessly Queenless: Requeening requires removing the current queen. A colony without a queen is in an unstable state. If a colony does not have a queen for too long the workers' ovaries activate and they start laying themselves. This leads to a feedback cycle where the colony becomes more dominated by drones until it collapses.
• Rejection of New Queen: Bees can recognize their own queen through pheromones and behavior. A queen placed into a different colony is typically interpreted as an intruder and is killed through balling. This makes requeening an act of getting the colony to accept the new queen.