1. TEMPERAMENT

Aggressive colonies of bees are not good fun. They make inspections awkward and it's the easiest way to annoy your neighbours. 

​

Requeening an aggressive colony with a mated queen of known heritage will resolve the issue of aggression but it can take around 10-12 weeks to take effect as the older bees die off. 

2. DISEASE

Diseases, viruses and infections such as chalk brood, sac brood, bald brood and even EFB can often be eradicated by requeening your colony with a queen of known heritage.

​

It's good practise to combine the requeening with comb replacement before the introduction to reduce the chance of reinfection.

3. AGE

Queens will need to replaced every 2-3 years. You can leave the bees to do this for you through a process called supersedure, but this does not guarantee the queen will be correctly mated and some still like to requeen with a mated queen.

​

At BMH, we requeen our hives every 2 years. 

4. MAKING INCREASE

One of the most common reason for introducing a mated queen is making splits for increase. We have a separate page detailing how to split beehives, but the process is very similar to requeening your bees. 

​

You just take a split from a colony to include BIAS and stores and then add a mated queen. 

5. SUITABILITY

There are many sub species of honey bee across the world. Some sub species are better suited to tasks than others. For example, Buckfast bees are very prolific and great for making splits, whilst AMM create very pure, white wax honey cappings.

​

You may wish to requeen for a specific reason.

6. FAILING QUEEN

Replacing a failing queen is probably the number one reason to requeen a beehive. Queens fail in many ways but most result in them turning into drone laying queens.

​

When you replace a DLQ, you need to find her, kill her and then follow the steps above to ensure you achieve a successful introduction.