Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: BeeScout on May 18, 2006, 10:27:32 pm
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Background:
I have only been beekeeping a short time. I relocated a very small swarm into a hive body and gave them pollen sub. and sugar water. I failed to reduce the entrance sufficiently and robber bees came into the hive after the sugar water. This morning the small hive was down to just the queen. I put the queen in a queen cage (no attendants) with a cork in each end and hung it in the honey super in a strong hive in my yard.
My Plan:
Tomorrow I plan to go to another beehive I have in the country. I thought I would bring back a couple of frames of honey covered with bees, and combine the new bees with the caged queen. In a few days I will release the queen.
Question: Will the bees feed the queen through the cage? Will this plan work? Any suggestions?
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Here's what you need to do. Get at least two frames of brood from a strong hive (that can spare them) and put them in a box and then shake in the bees from two more frames of brood. Add some frames of honey (at least one). You need to shake the two more frames of brood to make up for the drift back to the original hive. Aftter they have been queenless overnight, they will usually accept the queen.
Meanwhile back to your queen. She is probably not faring well in a honey super of a queenright hive. They are likely fighting her and possibly harming her. I would get her out. Go to the brood chamber and catch several fuzzy bees (bees that have just emerged) and put them in the cage with her. Feed them with a bit of syrup or honey on the screen wire and water them with a drop of water every day.
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Mr. Bush, thanks for the answer. Per you advice, I have pulled the queen from the queenright hive, and will find some fuzzy bees first thing in the morning.
Thank again,
Dwight