Hi Trev, I used to buy new queens annually because I was told it was “the thing to do” or similar words. In some hives it worked out ok. However on a few occasions, I requeened perfectly good hives, for them to go backwards. I decided to let my bees make their own queens a long time ago. I broke that rhythm about 10 years ago when I purchased 15 queens. Only about 8 were successful.
What I said previously about killing the queen one day, then introducing the new queen the next day is a good recommendation, I believe. Remember that when you introduce a new queen, I’m talking about a queen in a cage with a candy plug that takes a few days to get eaten out. By the time the bees eat the candy, they are generally accepting of the new queen as she emerges out of the cage.
Remember that queens from queen breeders are randomly selected, whereas new queens the way I do it are naturally selected. You could finish up with a runt when queens are randomly selected. Another thing to watch out for is poorly mated or unsuccessfully mated queens. The queen breeder (the shonky ones) could sell them before they are properly proved.
The queen pheromone will generally wear off after about 3 days. It takes 3-4 days before a colony starts to produce emergency queens after the queen has been removed. Killing the queen, then leaving her body in the hive will result in the bees starting emergency queens almost instantly. Therefore if you kill the queen today, with the view of installing a new queen in a cage tomorrow, don’t leave the dead queen in the hive, because the colony would have already started emergency queens by the time you install the cage, which could result in the colony rejecting the new queen.