Queen Introduction Question

[Hethen57]

When you introduce a laying queen in a queen cage with no attendants into a 24 hr queenless split, will the colony feed the new queen even though they are initially hostile to her?  Just curious if she has to go without eating for a few days while they are balling her cage, or if the nurse bees ignore the fact she is foreign and feed her anyway.  Not crucial to the process, but just wondering how they deal with her for the first few days until they accept her.

[iddee]

Yes, they will feed her, but I normally smear a drop of honey or sugar water onto the screen before I put her in, just in case.

[van from Arkansas]

Nurse bees will feed beetles when prompted, an enemy to the hive.  If the nurse bees will feed an enemy how much more so for a new queen.  I?ve keep queen in cages a week, fed by nurse bees as the guard bees trying to kill the new queen because they built queen cells.  I would go into the hive and destroy all queen cells.  The next day, more queen cells, finally the bees run out of young larva and accept the new queen.

With most hives the young larva is not present when I introduce a new queen and acceptance goes quickly.

[BeeMaster2]

As Van said, it is the nurse bees that feed her. Nurse bees do not reject the queen, field bees do.
Jim Altmiller

[Hethen57]

Thanks for the replies...I figured she had to get fed somehow because often she doesn't have her attendants in the cage, but just wasn't sure if the meek little nurse bees could make it past the angry bees on the screen to feed her.