I have been offered a queen with attendants that didn't quite make it back to the hive after an aborted swarm. ( I trust the beek so it should be good) I want to introduce her to a new Nuc yet to be put together but the weather has just turned very wet (why the swarm aborted)
How long can I keep her in a cage until the weather dries enough to open a hive and steal some broad and nurse bees etc to to put a Nuc together? They are forecasting up to a week of wet weather.
If your weather is warm enough, do it during a break in the rain. You risk loosing her if you wait a week
Give them one (not more, not less) drop of water per day and keep them in a quiet dark place. You can keep them a week if you have to, assuming young attendants. If the attendants start dying you need to put her in a hive or replace the attendants.
If you have an excluder on a hive, you can quickly open it and place her cage on the top frames. The bees will care for her if the queen of the hive cannot get up to her.
Thanks for the replies - I was gearing up to follow the suggestions when I checked the weather radar and saw a window of about an hour so quickly put together a nuc. Interesting the girls were very docile and didn't get upset in the least. Trouble was - no lava so the queen may have absconded - a couple of supersedure cells so left them to look after themselves and took what I could with some brood and hope for the best. The new queen is now safe and sound in the nuc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX3BgnOkozs
This is a video from Michael Palmer - How to tell if a hive is queenless (probably could have named it how to tell if the bees are ready to accept a new queen - or not)
Now that is real interesting !