Producers of Virginia Honey & Local Queens

Replacing a queen is a normal part of beekeeping. Queens can fail, become poorly mated, stop laying consistently, or simply need to be upgraded for better genetics. The challenge is not placing a new queen into a hive — the real challenge is getting the colony to accept her . If a hive does not accept a new queen, the workers will kill her. Before releasing a queen, I always recommend doing a simple acceptance check. It only takes a few minutes and can save you from losing an