Is it genuinely too late to requeen this far north, or do I buy a mated queen and squeak it in?
Uppsala, third year, five hives. One colony has a queen I've been unhappy with all season — patchy pattern, colony never took off, wash numbers fine so it's not mites. I meant to requeen in July and life happened.
My understanding of why it's late: raising their own is out because a new virgin would need to mate in September, and by then the drone congregation areas up here are basically empty — colonies have been evicting drones for weeks, and what's left flying is old. So the only real option is buying a mated, laying queen and introducing her now, this week.
Is that still worth doing at 60°N in late August? She'd have maybe three or four weeks of laying to contribute to winter bees. Or is the boring right answer to let this queen limp through winter and requeen properly in May?
Your reasoning on the drones is exactly right — letting them raise their own now is a coin flip at best in Skåne, worse in Uppsala. A bought mated queen this week is still a fair play though: introduced by 1 September she lays a real share of your winter bees, and those are the bees that matter. I'd do it if you can get a queen within days, not weeks.
ImkerinLena · Aug 28, 2026
Agree with SkaneBees with one caution: late-season introductions into a colony that's already contracting get rejected more often than June ones. Use a proper cage introduction, candy release, and resist inspecting for a week after. And if the queen you can source is itself a late-raised September mating from some southern producer's last round, you may be swapping one mediocre queen for another.
MieleMarco · Aug 29, 2026
For contrast: in Tuscany I requeen into late September without a second thought — but I have drones and warmth you don't. Your instinct that this is a latitude question is correct. At 60°N I'd say buy now or wait for May, nothing in between.
LindenNora · Aug 29, 2026
Found a producer two hours south with laying queens from their July round, not a last-minute batch — she arrives Tuesday. Candy release, hands off for a week, fingers crossed. If it fails I'm out one queen and the old one is still... adequate. Thanks all.