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Author Topic: caged queen "shelf life"  (Read 8423 times)

Offline tbh-fan

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caged queen "shelf life"
« on: April 26, 2007, 11:15:23 am »

hi,
I am wondering about how long could a (purchased) queen be confined in a cage with the few workers coming with, without any damage, before she really needs a hive to feed her and to continue her egg-laying job?

many thanks

Offline Understudy

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2007, 11:27:30 am »
If you give her a drop of water every day. Quite a while.

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Offline pdmattox

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2007, 05:29:30 pm »
I have kept the queen and attendents alive for 10 days after recieving them.  I put a drop of water on the screen once in the morning and then in the evening another drop of water and a small drop of honey and they did quite well.

Online Michael Bush

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2007, 08:25:23 pm »
She will last as long as the attendants.  They need water, of course.  (only one drop a day).  In couple of weeks you'll start losing attendants.  If you replace them she can keep going.
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Offline Mici

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2007, 10:07:40 am »
what if i want to store my own queen? what's the best way, ok i've bought queen cages, so..i put her and a few attendants into the cage and give her a drop of water every day, i can keep them in my room, right?
what about food? am i better off buying marshmallows and give it in, or how do i make them some candy?

Offline TwT

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2007, 10:19:27 pm »
I use Karo syrup and powdered sugar, mix it till the sugar want stick to it any more then you got it right!!!
« Last Edit: May 16, 2007, 06:55:40 pm by TwT »
THAT's ME TO THE LEFT JUST 5 MONTHS FROM NOW!!!!!!!!

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Offline abejaruco

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2007, 04:09:29 am »
Does not need the queen royal jelly? Is not made the royal jelly with something of pollen?

Offline Mici

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #7 on: May 16, 2007, 05:39:13 am »
TWT i really appreciate the help, but..it's not much of use to me, you see...what's Karo syrup :-P

abejaruco, are you sure? this queen candy is meant for the workers, right= so there's no need for royal gellee

Offline shakerbeeman

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #8 on: May 16, 2007, 12:12:57 pm »
There were several dead attendant bees in the cage with my queen but she was well. I hope she has what she needs with the candy to survive as I gave her nothing.

Offline TwT

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #9 on: May 16, 2007, 06:59:38 pm »
just remember, a queen doesn't feed her self, she needs attendants to feed her, bee's can feed a queen from outside the cage but if you take her from a hive she needs attendant to live, when attendants die put more in with her.
THAT's ME TO THE LEFT JUST 5 MONTHS FROM NOW!!!!!!!!

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Offline abejaruco

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #10 on: May 16, 2007, 07:03:42 pm »
Quote
abejaruco, are you sure? this queen candy is meant for the workers, right= so there's no need for royal gellee

I don´t see clear if the queen is rightly fed.  And you can see that when the queen is confined too much days, it will be killed when the introduction into the hive.

Offline TwT

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #11 on: May 16, 2007, 07:04:19 pm »
Karo syrup

THAT's ME TO THE LEFT JUST 5 MONTHS FROM NOW!!!!!!!!

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Offline Mici

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #12 on: May 16, 2007, 07:23:32 pm »
abejaruco, what are you aiming at? if you take the queen out for a few days and put her back in? or what? i think that those few attendands provide with the minimum food, that's why she looses weight and size, only few days later after introducing into a hive, she gains the weight back up.

ok so it's just corn syrup, so..a thick sugar water could be used?

Online Michael Bush

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #13 on: May 17, 2007, 10:26:53 am »
>what about food? am i better off buying marshmallows and give it in, or how do i make them some candy?

Simple candy that is just sugar and water or honey and sugar works well.  Marshmallows are ok for an introduction but they are not good food as they have too many solids.  The queen is not laying and so she only requires sugar.  If you set up a "battery box" then you can cage the queen, put some workers in the box and feed them through the screen with a drop or two of water every day and a piece of "candy" inside for them to eat.  After a couple of weeks you can dump the workers out (by a hive or they will be lost as they have been gone too long and will not be oriented) and dump a few new workers in.  You can keep many queens this way.  The battery box can be bought from Mann lake or made from any box that is beeproof by putting a small screen over a hole so they can breath and you can give them some water from time to time.
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Offline Mici

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #14 on: May 17, 2007, 10:41:04 am »
so basicly, for a queen "bank" you don't really need a hive, or is it more quality related, to keepeeing queens in a strong hive, rather changing those few attendats?

ok so..honey and powdered sugar, thank you!

Online Michael Bush

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #15 on: May 17, 2007, 11:30:58 pm »
>so basicly, for a queen "bank" you don't really need a hive, or is it more quality related, to keepeeing queens in a strong hive, rather changing those few attendats?

Any queen bank  requires a certain amount of maintenance.  With a free flying one (a five frame nuc with a frame of queen cages) you have to periodically add a frame of brood to keep them from turning into laying workers, dwindling or otherwise losing morale.  You have to watch them as they sometimes make a queen from the frame of open brood.  If you let the new queen stay too long they will eventually kill some of the queens.

If you have a queen bank in a battery box that is confined, you'll have to change workers periodically and have some source for water and food, where the free flying one will take care of that themselves.
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Offline Mici

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Re: caged queen "shelf life"
« Reply #16 on: May 18, 2007, 08:38:43 am »
good to know, thank you!

ok, so obviusly marshmallow isn't good. did a test -caged 14 bees, 7 with so called candy and 7 with marshmallow.
they seemed to enjoy the marsmallow much more but the result..ah...they'd all surelly die in 2 dayss with marshmallow, only 3 were left this morning. so know you know why you get dead bees when releasing a queen with marshmallow.