First I would like to thank all that post here, after about a 20 yr hyatus decided to get back in the game and have found much useful info on this site--problem-- rcvd 3 pkgs today, 1 with a good queen, one with 2 workers in the cage and a dead queen, 1 with 6 workers in the cage and no visible queen, called the supplier, very accomadating and understanding have no fault with them, the girl said she had never known of a queenless cage, dead yes but absnt no. They are shipping me 2 queens, I have no problem paying for one if she is correct. the one with the dead queen is cut and dried, the other if she is correct, gives me an extra queen. Have no drawn comb starting everything from scratch. I do have nucs ready. Would it be asking to much of a pkg to take some bees from one and install in a nuc with the queen if she is correct and the one with the pkg was so small that it could not be distinguished from a worker..or would it be better to just pinch her, pay and forget it..Tomorrow should tell the story, mighht have a small viable queen that will work, maybe not, if she is there then I guess there is no problem..Thanks have a good day..dl
You may not want to kill any queen until the replacement queen arrives.
You might consider banking one of the queens until the packages settle down and get you some drawn out frames.
Ernie
You have keep bees before so you know how to identify queens. On a side note, I have received a few queens in the last few years that were no larger than a worker, had to look real hard to tell the difference. Most small queens I have received have been Russian hybrids.
Sad to say, I do not keep detailed enough records to be able to tell you how they turned out :(. I do know however one of the small queens I received last year has been poor.
What i would do with the hive with the queen missing is put a queen excluder on top of the bottom board then your hive body and dump the package on the ground in front of the hive the bees will march into the hive and the queen wont be able to go into the hive because of the exlcluder unless she is a really small queen. Another thing you can do is just add the queen into the new package let them release her even if there is another queen in there one of them will survive and you will still have a queen thats what i would do. As far as splitting up a package i wouldnt do it but if you want to you could split up a package and put them in nucs. chris
Oliver: We have a queen breeder out this direction that is very successful using 2-frame nucs to bank queens. Of course, it's not a full-size nuc, so the bees are able to stay warm enough. If you were willing to modify your nuc, it might buy you some time until you know whether the "small" queen is viable or not before squishing her.
Of course, this opinion is offered because I've already, in my 3 short years of beekeeping (this will be my 4th season) had to squish enough bad queens that I hate the idea of losing one that hasn't had a chance to prove herself yet.
But it's your package you'll be dividing. Only you can decide if the risk might be worth it.
Good luck!