Will bees keep caged queen warm

[tom]

Hello

  I am getting the end of the storm here and just before the storm hit i requeened my second hive and she is still in the cage. I did not want to chance it and they kill her i took the old one out because she has no eggs or brood in the combs. And i put the old queen out of her misery and put the new one in all my other hives are still raising brood except this one so the old one had to go. Now i had planned on turning her lose tomarrow and it is going to only get in the 70s but now it is only in the upper 60s is this warm enough and will the bees keep her warm if it gets to cold. They have been flying but my big hive is not and my third hive is not but they say warm weather is coming back sunday and i hope all of these wild flowers will bloom so they will be busy.

Tom

[Brian D. Bray]

My obsevations has been that bees are active and flying well at 58F.  Anytime you have such activity it's okay to pop the top on the hive so requeening should be fine.  I you didn't leave the corks in, you may find she's already lose.

[tom]

Howdy

  I just don't want to go thru the same thing i did with the other hive i might use the idea you told mee about the sugar spray and vanilla if she is not out tomarrow i will go in and spray the hive like i did with the other one and spray her too and let her walk on in and then i will close it up and wait for a few days. This queen has a yellow spot does this mean she is a 2007 queen and she was pipping when i was going to put her in the hive and you could here her thru out the house making this noise and when she did it the workers came to her and she stopped.

Tom

[Brian D. Bray]

The color code for dating queens is something I'm personnally unfamiliar with, it is a practice that began after I entered my hermitage.  I like the idea of it as it takes queen age a snape as you know in at a glance the age of the queen and it also helps in IDing the queen.  However, I would venture to say that if the spot is yellow and you got her this year as 2007 hasn't happened yet.  As such then year 6 color would yellow, which would also mean year 1 is yellow too.  I believe they would use a system similar to what poultry raisers use (those who show them) in having divided the colors up 1 & 6, 2 & 7, 3 & 8, 4 & 9, and 5 & 10.  Such a system works well when the critters are realatively short lived.

[tom]

Hello

 Mr. Bray i did the same as i did with my other queen the hive had only two queen cells built . So i got them out and then i sprayed them down with my new queen release spray that you told me about and she crawled down between the frames. And then they went crazy over the spray and they have used up all of the syrup that i had fed them before the storm so now they are going crazy searching for food but i am holding off feeding them because before the storm they were working the plants close by the hives. So now that we got all of this rain and they are calling for more but this should help with the fall flow.

Tom

[Dick Allen]

The international color code for queens is:

years 0 & 5  -  Blue
years 1 & 6  -  White
years 2 & 7  -  Yellow
years 3 & 8  -  Red
years 4 & 9  -  Green

Last years queens were blue, this years queens are white, next years queens will be yellow. Of course, that only holds true for those following the convention which the major queen producers do.  If someone was raising a few queens for their own use and were simply marking queens just to spot them easier then any color could have been used.

[tom]

Hello Mr. Allen

  The queen i got did have a yellow spot as for my queens i got back in the summer had white. I get my queens from a good breeder named Tim Arheit from honey run apiaries his queens are as close to sue colby as anyone can get and they are healthy and fat when they come and the offspring are good workers. I not only found a good package bee company but i also found good quality queens so next year i will have two more swarms coming and if my hives make it thru the winter i will have five good hives.

Tom