I have a couple of wild (feral) bee hives that are pretty aggressive. When you work with them you better make sure you have a good bee suit on. In order to calm them down a new queen can be introduced that is from a more gentle breed. I ordered 2 Italian Hybrids to replace the queens currently in those 2 hives. Italian hybrid bees are a cross between Italian and Carniolan honey bees. They are known for their gentle behavior and are considered the best all-purpose bees for beekeeping. In the video you can see her with a few attendants in their small cages. The attendants are there to keep her happy.
In order to introduce new queens you first have to find the old queen and destroy her. There can't be more than one per hive or the old queen will kill the new one. It is a pretty daunting task to try finding the old queen. Imagine one bee that is only slightly different out of 15,000 other bees. Thanks to Linda's sharp eyes we eventually found them both and removed them.
The queen is then placed in the hive in a special cage so the other bees can smell and see her but can't make contact with her. They, too, can kill her, sensing that she is a new queen in a hive where she does not belong. She will stay in this cage for 5 days to get herself and the other bees acclimated. In the video notice how other bees are climbing on the cage, they know she is there by the new scent.
The next video is of me releasing her. Normally the queens are shy and don't like light. The first one I released quickly ran to the other side of the board. The one in this video was not so shy and immediately began looking for cells to lay eggs in and also paused to get a drink on nectar. Notice other bees following along, but not bothering her. That means that they have accepted having a new queen. Also notice that she has a blue dot on her back. This is to make it easier to find her in the future and also the color blue means she was born in the year 2025.