Question: 'Should I requeen every two years?' Answer: 'Well, yes and no.' This common subject came up again during some short email interactions a few weeks ago. At first glance, and from the perspective of an established beekeeper, yep….you should requeen every two years. Next question? But wait. There’s more to it than that.

Beekeeping life was simpler a few decades ago. Beekeepers were given clear instructions such as: requeen every two years, avoid pesticides, treat with Terramycin for American foulbrood prevention, don’t let the moths take over, and get your supers on before the nectar flow begins – just pretty much traditional beekeeping. Well, as usual, things change – maybe due to mites and maybe not – but for whatever reason, some of the basic rules of beekeeping are changing. So, should you requeen every year? Well, yes and no.

As I have said before, I am unable to find a time in beekeeping’s history when beekeepers were generally happy with their queen stock. We have always been, and continue to search for, the perfect queen stock. If the opinion of beekeepers today is an indication, we have not found it. Commercial queen production is tedious, weather-constrained, and imprecise. The current cadre of U.S. commercial queen producers is an industry treasure of experience and ability. Unfortunately they seem to be a non-renewable resource that is under siege. It takes years to become competent at routinely producing good queens; therefore, few new people are clamoring to become commercial queen producers. Driven by the high seasonal demand for replacement queens and the expense of producing them, I fear that some queens are sold that are inferior. By writing this, I suppose I am saying that I am one of the ones who is still looking for the perfect queen. For either the new or experienced beekeeper, when considering requeening, the first question must be, 'Can I get good replacement queens at the time I need them?'

In many instances, requeening is a serious hive management undertaking. While a replacement queen may look good in the cage, for whatever bee reason, the bees sometimes don’t like her. She’s killed and tossed out front – or maybe she dies naturally and is tossed out front. Large, colorful queens are not necessarily good queens, but such features are ready evaluation parameters. It is entirely possible for small queens to actually produce good stock and head a productive colony. Assuming no obvious anatomical problems, neither you, nor I, nor the queen producer, can look at a caged queen and predict her future performance. That’s disconcerting.

The technical ability of a specific beekeeper to perform the requeening procedure is diverse. Normally, having several years of beekeeping experience would be an indicator that the beekeeper is adept enough to implement the procedure. But here’s the rub…if the beekeeper is requeening, based on the calendar, a perfectly good queen could be replaced with a queen of lesser abilities and attributes. It happens. It is a fact that occasionally, while trying to help, we actually hurt.

But alternatively, if we never requeen, choosing instead to let the colony requeen itself, it can be surprising to see how long a colony will let a bad situation go before doing something. For example, I have a 9-frame observation hive in my lab. Last season, it became apparent that the queen was failing. Increasing amounts of her brood were undersized drones and the laying pattern was spotty (shotgunned). The observation hive is hard to open and is intended for viewing purposes only, so I let the bees do their own thing. Well, their own thing was to let the colony run completely down, and allow wax moths to invade. The bees never made any effort to replace the bad queen. I don’t know why. True, at times, we may cause unintentional hurt, but overall, requeening on a regular schedule is a good idea. We control the queen replacement process and we can do it on a timeframe that avoids disrupting the honey crop.

This question is an example of why both chocolate and vanilla ice cream flavors are produced. Some of you insist on the very best queens while others of you accept any available queen. The bee journals are replete with advertisements for high quality and high dollar queens. In an ideal bee world, for which we are all striving, put in the best queen and expect the best results. Right? In the real world, I have had the 'best' queens tossed right out front with the lesser queens. I can’t say that high-dollar and specially bred queens are any more appealing to the colony than lesser bred queens. (I will be hearing from some of you on that statement.) Expect some successes, but you should also expect some setbacks.

Yes, there is – requeen regularly with the best queens available to you. Expect some rejects and failures, but overall and over time, the production and longevity of your total apiary will be improved by the procedure – just don’t ask for guarantees.

While not directly related to queen replacement, a normal byproduct of beekeeping is dead colonies (dead-outs), which result in the acquisition of vacant but previously-used equipment. I suspect that many of us have stacks of this kind of equipment sitting around waiting for that special day when we have time to do something with it. In the second paragraph above, I stated that things change. That is true of our beekeeping attitudes toward frames and used equipment, too.

It would be easy to hate these things. They take up space and they require tedious labor to repair. Most are wood, but increasingly, many are made of plastic. Essentially, each of these frames signifies a failed effort on both my and my bees’ part. Maybe that is why the task is distasteful.

Unless you are of a personality who enjoys the frame repair process, I would recommend using plastic sheet foundation for the repair process¹. Using wire-cutting pliers, strip out foundation wire – if that type of foundation was previously used – and make certain that the end bars are firmly attached to the top bar. If more than a little actual repair is required to make the frame usable again, I suggest relegating it to the kindling pile. The flat blade of a hive tool is handy for popping out the wood cleat that originally held the wired foundation in place. Using the same hive tool, knock off most, if not all, of the wax moth cocoons and discard the original comb. The old, thick, dark comb doesn’t have a lot of value for anything other than starting winter fires. There’s very little obtainable beeswax in them. Though broken cleats can be reused, I normally cut new cleats on my table saw that are just a bit short and a bit narrow. These slightly smaller cleats can be reinserted into the frame easier than the precisely-fitting original cleat.

A universal challenge that is encountered when repairing frames is refitting foundation into different styled frames. Some may have solid bottom bars, grooved bottom bars, two-piece bottom bars, cleated top bars or grooved top bars. If you were using replacement foundation intended for grooved or two-piece bottom bars, frames having solid bottom bars may require you to cut a small strip from the plastic foundation in order for it to fit. More kindling?

It is said by some that frame repair is not worth the time and effort, and Honestly, it probably isn’t. Considering all time expenditures, assembling a new frame probably takes about as much time as cleaning and repairing an old one. But there’s the cost of the new frames to consider – plus it seems wasteful to discard a usable old frame. It’s a close call. Don’t spend a lot of repair time on a wobbly, old frame.

There is essentially no repair that can or should be done to plastic frames, themselves. I suppose broken parts could be glued back together, but the accumulation of wax will hamper most glues from working properly. I would suggest that you recycle the plastic frame with your other plastic recyclables.

Bee equipment designers, now long past, intended combs to be used for years and years. Now chemical and disease residues are forcing us to rethink that age-old procedure. This very day, Editor Kim sent me yet another message citing a technical source saying that reusing old comb for a long time could be harboring not only chemical residues, but also viral infections. Now before you all go out and burn up perfectly good, old combs, I need to say that we are not firmly at that point….yet. I don’t know any researcher who’s been gamey enough to specifically say how many seasons comb should be used before it is retired. Also, I am unable to tell you, at this time, to what extent the wooden frame itself is contaminated. Should old frames be refitted and reused? For the time being, I am guessing the answer to be 'yes.' Should I expect to grow old with my combs and be using them 10 – 15 – 20 years from now. Probably not.

To greater or lesser degrees, things have always been changing in beekeeping. Today, our queen stock is not perfect. It never has been. Our techniques for introducing new queens are not foolproof. They never were. When colonies seem to needlessly die, we are increasingly suspicious of our old comb and used equipment as a possible part of the problem. That may – or may not – be the solution.

But a clear, new answer has not yet made itself plain. Are you and I supposed to burn up woodenware that has a potential lifespan of a decade or more because it may have a virus contamination? I was taught that giving colonies frames of drawn comb was a good thing. It saved the bees from having to build expensive, new comb. Well maybe, maybe not. Our present recommendations seem better suited for a style of traditional beekeeping now long gone – a time when good queens were readily available at a cheap price and a time when high-quality woodenware could be used for 20 – 30 years. Stand by. We will work it out. Things are in flux, but when have they not been?