Why September Can Be the Best Time to Requeen a Colony

Many beekeepers think of requeening as a spring or early-summer job. It is easy to understand why. The weather is improving, colonies are expanding and there are drones in the air if the bees decide to raise a queen of their own.

But waiting until spring also means asking a doubtful queen to take the colony through the whole winter before replacing her. If she is already slowing down, producing an inconsistent brood pattern or failing to hold the colony together, those lost months cannot be recovered simply by introducing a new queen in April.

For suitable colonies, September offers another option: make the change while the weather is still workable, introduce a young, already-mated queen, and allow the colony to go into winter under the queen expected to lead it through the following season. In effect, September requeening begins next spring's preparation several months early.

Why queen quality matters before winter...

The queen is not the only factor governing colony performance, but she is central to it. Her laying rate, mating quality, pheromone profile, genetics and physical health all influence the brood pattern, population, temperament and cohesion of the colony. September is also the period in which the colony is changing from a short-lived summer workforce to the longer-lived bees that must carry it through winter. A queen capable of maintaining an appropriate area of healthy worker brood can help the colony produce a strong final generation before brood rearing reduces further.

Young does not automatically mean good, and old does not automatically mean useless. A well-mated older queen with an excellent pattern should be judged on her performance rather than condemned by the colour of the mark on her thorax. Equally, a newly purchased queen is not valuable merely because she is new. She must be properly mated, healthy, undamaged and suited to the colony and the beekeeper's objectives.

Nevertheless, queen age and quality matter. Research conducted across 252 colonies in a warm southern climate found that colonies headed by young queens produced significantly more brood than those headed by older queens during the autumn and winter part of the trial. The climate was not British and the results should not be transferred uncritically, but the study supports what many experienced beekeepers observe: a sound young queen can give a colony greater reproductive momentum.

Our own experience is that a new, well-mated queen introduced in September has a better chance of heading a colony successfully through winter than a two- or even three-year-old open-mated queen whose performance may be declining. Age alone is not the test, but when an older queen is already giving cause for concern, September provides an opportunity to replace uncertainty with a young queen whose acceptance and laying pattern can still be checked before winter.

Advantage one: the colony enters winter with its future queen

The clearest advantage is that the queen expected to lead the colony next year is introduced before winter rather than after it. If she is accepted and establishes a satisfactory laying pattern in September, the colony has time to organise around her. Her workers begin to emerge before or during the early winter period, and by spring she is no longer a newly introduced stranger. She is the established queen of the colony. This removes one major spring job at precisely the time when the beekeeper is busiest. Instead of finding, removing and replacing an old queen while the colony is expanding rapidly, the beekeeper can concentrate on space, swarm prevention and the first major flows.

Advantage two: useful late brood production

A good young queen may continue laying later into autumn, producing additional workers for the winter population. That does not mean that the largest possible brood nest is always desirable. Brood rearing consumes food and protein, and every developing bee is also a potential breeding site for varroa.The objective is therefore not uncontrolled late expansion. It is a well-nourished, healthy generation of winter bees in a colony with adequate stores and mites under control.

After the main autumn syrup has been taken down, we would normally consider an appropriate protein supplement where the colony and local forage justify it. Combined with a capable young queen, this can support the nurse bees and encourage a final useful period of brood rearing. But nutrition and varroa management must work together. Stimulating brood in a colony carrying a damaging mite load can produce more compromised bees rather than better ones.

Advantage three: fewer unpleasant discoveries in early spring

A colony can survive winter yet emerge in poor condition because the queen has failed, become a drone layer or dwindled to the point at which recovery is unlikely. Discovering that problem during the first spring inspection leaves the beekeeper with limited choices. Replacement queens may be scarce, locally mated queens are not yet available, and the colony may be too small to make good use of a new queen even if one can be found.

Requeening a known doubtful colony in September deals with the foreseeable problem while good-quality mated queens may still be available and while there is time to verify the result. It is not a guarantee against winter queen loss. Nothing in beekeeping offers that guarantee. It is simply better risk management than knowingly sending a failing queen into winter and hoping she lasts until spring.

Advantage four: an opportunity to improve temperament and genetics

Requeening is not only about egg production. September provides an opportunity to change the character of a colony before the next active season.A colony that is persistently aggressive, excessively swarm-prone or otherwise unsuitable for its location can be requeened from calmer, productive and carefully selected stock. This is particularly valuable in gardens, allotments and teaching apiaries, where temperament is a safety issue as well as a matter of convenience.

The change will not be instant. Existing workers retain the characteristics of the previous queen, and it takes several weeks for them to be replaced by the new queen's daughters. A September introduction allows much of that transition to happen before the colony reaches its full spring population.

Advantage five: it can simplify autumn uniting

September is a month for honest decisions. A small colony with a poor queen and another viable colony do not both need to be carried through winter simply because both survived the summer.

Where disease has been ruled out, a weak or queen-defective colony may be united with a stronger queenright unit, or suitable bees and brood may be consolidated around the better queen. Alternatively, a colony that has sufficient strength but an unsuitable queen may be requeened directly.The principle is straightforward: enter winter with fewer sound colonies rather than a larger number of doubtful ones. Requeening can be part of that consolidation, but it cannot rescue a colony that is diseased, too depleted or badly infested with varroa without those underlying problems also being addressed.

Advantage six: a young queen may reduce spring disruption

Colonies headed by younger queens are often considered less likely to attempt early queen replacement than colonies headed by failing queens. A strong, well-mated queen may also help maintain a more consistent brood pattern as spring expansion begins.

This should not be turned into the claim that a young queen prevents swarming. She does not. Congestion, genetics, weather, forage, colony age structure and management all affect swarm preparation. September requeening may reduce one source of instability, but it does not replace spring inspections or swarm control.

September also has risks

The advantages are real, but autumn requeening must be done carefully. By September, drone numbers are falling and the colony's ability to recover from a failed introduction by raising and mating its own queen may be very limited. For that reason, September is a time for introducing a properly mated queen—not relying on a virgin queen to mate successfully at the end of the season.

For us, the replacement should take place during the first two weeks of September. Our final mated queens are available at the beginning of the month, so the queen must be secured and the work planned promptly. Leaving the decision until later risks having no suitable mated replacement available and too little workable weather in which to let her settle and confirm her performance.

Our method: a controlled supersedure

When we replace a queen, we use a process that might be described as a controlled supersedure. We do not immediately dispatch the old queen and leave ourselves without a fallback if the introduction fails. The old queen is first found and removed from the main colony, but she is not immediately dispatched. One option is to place her in a securely closed, ventilated queen cage inside a queenless nucleus colony, where the surrounding bees can feed and care for her through the cage while she remains safely in reserve.

Alternatively, we set up a queenless Apidea and place the old queen inside it in a roller cage, with paper secured over the release end. The bees gradually chew through the paper and release her, after which she will usually settle into the Apidea and begin laying again. A queen-excluder guard must be fitted over the Apidea entrance before she is released, reducing the risk of her leaving or absconding. It should be checked regularly, must not dangerously restrict ventilation or worker traffic, and should remain in place only for as long as it is needed.

The new mated queen is then introduced to the main colony using our normal introduction procedure. Once she has been introduced, do not open the brood nest for two weeks. Give her time to settle, establish her position within the colony and begin laying without further interference. Make sure the colony has access to liquid feed, such as our syrup, throughout this period; the feeder can be replenished without dismantling the brood nest.

After two weeks, inspect carefully and judge the queen by her brood—not simply by whether the introduction cage is empty. The brood should occupy a compact, concentrated area and consist predominantly of worker brood, without unexplained drone brood scattered among worker cells. Within the centre of the brood nest, cells vacated by emerging bees should normally be laid in again rather than immediately filled with stores. The pattern must, of course, be assessed in relation to the time of year, the colony's strength and the amount of available comb.

If the new queen was supplied unmarked, or the workers have removed her mark, do not attempt to mark her at this stage. Nor should her wing be clipped while she is still establishing herself. The priority is acceptance and stability; any unnecessary handling that might encourage rejection should be avoided. Continue feeding the colony. When liquid-syrup feeding has finished, add a suitable pollen substitute to support the nurse bees and continuing brood production. December often includes mild periods in southern England and in several other parts of the country, and the queen may continue laying or resume after only a short pause. Adequate protein therefore remains important, provided the colony is healthy, has sufficient carbohydrate stores and varroa is under control.

Only when the new queen has proved herself do we dispatch the old queen. The bees from the queenless nucleus or Apidea can then be united with the main colony. This turns requeening from a single irreversible gamble into a managed transition: if the new queen is not accepted or fails to perform, the original queen has not yet been lost.

Whichever holding method is used, the principle is the same: the old queen is kept alive and properly cared for while the new queen is given time to establish in the main colony. If the new introduction fails, we still have the original queen available rather than having lost both options. Robbing pressure may be high, so syrup must not be spilled and entrances may need reducing. The colony also requires enough bees, stores and time to make use of the new queen. Weather and location matter: September in southern England is not the same as September in northern Scotland or at a high, exposed apiary.

Most importantly, requeening must not be used to disguise disease. A poor brood pattern can be caused by queen failure, but it can also reflect brood disease, nutritional shortage, chilled brood, comb problems or heavy varroa pressure. Diagnose before replacing.

Which colonies should be considered?

September requeening may be particularly valuable where:

- the queen is old and her performance is declining;
- the brood pattern has become persistently poor without another identified cause;
- worker brood is being replaced by drone brood in worker cells;
- the colony is healthy and sufficiently strong but has an unsuitable temperament;
- the beekeeper wants to introduce selected genetics before the next season;
- a production colony is expected to make a rapid start in spring;
- a viable colony would otherwise enter winter under a queen whose reliability is doubtful.

It may be inappropriate where the colony is seriously diseased, critically weak, short of food, carrying uncontrolled varroa, or where there is insufficient time or suitable weather to confirm that the new queen has established. Nor is there any reason to replace an excellent queen simply because September has arrived. Requeening should be a decision based on records and colony performance, not a ritual performed according to the calendar.

The real advantage: time

The greatest advantage of September requeening is time. It gives the colony time to accept its new queen, time for the beekeeper to assess her laying pattern, and time for some of her daughters to join the winter population. It gives an unsuitable colony time to begin changing its temperament. It removes a predictable problem before winter and one demanding job from the following spring.

Spring rewards preparation, but much of that preparation belongs in autumn. A healthy colony, adequate stores, good varroa control and a sound young queen give the beekeeper a much stronger starting point than a hive closed in September under a question mark. Do not replace a queen merely because she is there. But do not carry a failing queen through winter merely because requeening is traditionally thought of as a spring job.

Sometimes the best way to begin next season is to change the queen before this one has quite finished.