Keeping queens alive

Cindi · January 29, 2008, 10:13:30 AM

Eeks, here I am on more questions that need answers.

I am reading posts now where people are speaking about buying queens. So, my questions follow:

When one gets queens for requeening their colonies (duh, the obvious), how do you keep the queens alive whilst they are waiting for their nucs to be assembled, and the like? This will be my first year purchasing queens for making nucs and requeening a couple of the colonies of last year.

Say, 20 queens in queen cages. What do you do with them. Please elaborate with your experiences and methods, I need to know. Have a great and wonderful day. Cindi

limyw · January 29, 2008, 10:48:28 AM

I placed them in the hives that going to requeen or split. A few cages in one hive, no problem for them to survive for 2-3 days. Anyway, the faster you introduce them, the better they will. I ever removed old queen or split hive 1 day before the new queen arrive, so instantly new queen can be introduced.

tig · January 29, 2008, 05:26:50 PM

if for some reason i cannot introduce the queens right away, i give each caged queen a drop of water on the screen, away from the side of the candy, place them facing downwards on a tray and set the tray on top of a basin of water [this is to prevent ants from getting to the queens]. each day the queens stay on the tray, you should give them a drop of water. place the tray away from direct sunlight. a cool dark place in the house is preferable.

if you have to keep the queens longer than a couple of days, it would be best to make a queen bank. that would mean making a queenless colony with plenty of honey and pollen, and a lot of nurse bees. the danger of a queen bank is, you have to be absolutely sure you don't have a virgin queen running around. she's sure to kill your banked queens lol.

Understudy · January 29, 2008, 07:11:18 PM

I second the placing of queens in a queenless nuc with nurse bees. You can have several in one nuc.

I will tell you this. You must watch them closely. I had three queens in a nuc and they just put propolis in every hole in one. Thus the queen died. they did it in less than 48 hours.

If it is only a few days the drop of water on the screen is also very good.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

pdmattox · January 29, 2008, 07:23:08 PM

I have kept them in their cages with attendants for 8-9 days before introduction. just a drop of water in morning and evening and keep them in a dark warm place.

Michael Bush · January 29, 2008, 07:58:59 PM

Assuming they have attendants and candy, you can just give them a drop of water now and then and they will probably live about two weeks. If you put them in a box or jar or whatever with a screen for a lid (for air) and dump in some nurse bees (fuzzy bees from a brood comb) you can change these attendants now and then and possibly keep them indefinitely. If you make a 3/4" shim and a queenless nuc, you can put all the queens on top of the bars with the screen down and you'll have a queen bank. You can keep them in this indefinitely but will need to add a frame of brood from time to time and you may lose a few queens eventually over time.

metzelplex · January 30, 2008, 01:26:00 AM

I've bought queens that were kind of small but I needed a queen in the box so I bought them anyway when I checked them about 10 days later they were bigger I thought the queens were just in the cage to long but now I'm thinking they might have been dehydrated. metzelplex

Brian D. Bray · January 30, 2008, 07:14:04 AM

I've noticed that some queen producers are not putting attendents in with the queen, just the queen in the cage. The other thing is little if any candy. They will ship this way fine, but if keeping them out of the hive due to weather etc then adding attendents in a jar along with the queen and spray the screen (screen replaces solid lid) with a little sugar syrup every day. the same goes for those cages that have little or no candy. Keep them in a cool, dark, dry place--I put mine on the shelf in the closet.

Cindi · January 30, 2008, 10:33:09 AM

Excellent ideas and thoughts. Brian, I really like what your method is. It sounds like the bees would be happiest this way, it would be like a mini colony in a dark room. I would then presume you simply dump the queen and attending bees into a nuc that is made? Elaborate please. Michael, the queen bank nuc idea is another great one too. Have a wonderful and great day. Cindi