Hello i was wondering how to go about introducing virgins into nucs with out them being killed i want to use virgins to put in my nucs should they be queenless for a while and get rid of any queen cells until they really want her.
Thomas Yancey
a nectar flow or sugar syrup a day or two before seems to help, they accept easier with a flow on and make sure that they dont have queen cells started. Remove the queen and a day or two late put her in a cage for a few days and release her you should be fine. Queen cells work great too. chris
We use a lot of virgins (grafted cells that emerge in the incubator) and just release them straight into a split (queenless for 24 hrs). Virgins don't elicit the same responses as do mated queens. The bees usually don't act as if they've even noticed the intro.
Scott