New Package & Permacomb

[AllanJ]

I will be trying out a new package of bees straight into permacomb. I am curious, but since there will be no comb to be drawn, what will the bees get up to in the first few days whilst the queen is still being eaten out of the cage?  Building stores of pollen?

[Understudy]

Make sure you prep the frames with sugar water and Honey B Healthy like the instructions say. The bees will bring in nectar and pollen. If you do not prep the frames they are likely to reject them.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Kathyp]

understudy, that's creepy!  i like it.   :evil:

[Michael Bush]

I'd just direct release the queen and let her get to work.

[Zoot]

I "directly released" my queens in both of my new hives last year and they got off to a fine start with no problems. It was actually an accident - in my haste to install the bees quickly I unwittingly un-corked the wrong end of both queen cages allowing them to move into their respective hives immediately. Of course one hive did superscede within a couple of weeks, apparently an increasingly common occurence I probably could not have prevented.

[Brian D. Bray]

forinstalling queens of different subspecies where the odors might be different enough between subspecies to matter (like putting a Russian queen in an Italian swarm) it is best to mask the difference in odors by using a strong scent.  Peppermint works--the old stand by is vanilla.  It takes a few days for the extrac oil to disipate and in the interm the queen gets to work and is usually accepted.