Installing a queen

[kenglert]

Hey everyone.  I'm getting my package of bees on Wed (2nd year and very excited) and I was wondering what your methods are for installing your queen.  I've seen it done a couple different ways from leaving it in the cage for a while to releasing it in the hive almost first thing.  What have you guys found that works best?  Thanks for any advice.
Kurt

[Zamboy13]

I didn't really had a bee package. I actually bought a nuc but most of the videos I've seen on Youtube which you can check out if you haven't done that yet, all suggest to live the queen in its cage for 2-3 days before releasing it, that is of course, if the worker bees have not released their queen by that time.

[jaseemtp]

I recieved three packages on the 21st of last month.  What I did is, when you place the queen cage in there, put the candy side up, that way if an attandant dies the queen can still get out, also make sure the screen side is somewhere the bees can get to it to feed the queen.  I removed the cork on the candy end and checked them three days later and all looked well.

[Michael Bush]

http://bushfarms.com/beespackages.htm

[VolunteerK9]

I just installed one about an hour ago and just did a direct release. This package was from Walter Kelley via another commercial beek. So these girls were packaged with their new queen probably at a minimum of 4 days, so I really don't feel that it was necessary to keep her caged any longer.

[FRAMEshift]

I also did direct release of 3 queens this morning.  They had not been housed with the packages so I left the queen cage in for 2 days.  Then I pulled the cork and let the queens out.  One of the three was balled, but I don't know if she was killed.  Maybe they already had a queen in their package.  :?