Queen bee in a queen motel

[JP]

The supplier put two attendants in with her when he gave her to me.  He said they should release her in about three or four days.  So we'll see.

Linda T in Atlanta

The white stuff in the plug end is queen candy. The bees will chew this out and probably faster than you think. My guess would be 2 days tops, but when they really get at it, she can be released overnite. You can take a nail and poke through the center of the candy in the future if you like. This will get them to release her sooner. The bees will tend to the queen in a cage like this, just not as effectively as a push in type.


...JP

...JP

[tillie]

PN, the supplier, poked a hole in the candy with a nail before he gave me the cage. 

I now have the material to make a push-in cage and am going to, following MB's instructions so that the next time I need to replace or requeen, I'll have it ready to go. 

I was afraid to do that today because I would have had to get home, construct the queen cage, find a frame of emerging bees and honey in another hive, get the queen out of the candy cage and into the push-in cage without mishap, and get back to the office by 4:45.  I thought under pressure I'd blow some part of the deal, so I stuck her in in the cage in which I got her.  I really hope this works OK.

I'm going to the mountains on Saturday just for overnight, but I'll check on her on Friday afternoon to see if they have already released her.

Linda T in Atlanta

[bassman1977]

I really hope this works OK.

It'll be fine.  If you see that they are eatting away at the plug and if she's not released yet, you could actually release her manually on Friday before you leave.  That would be plenty of time for the bees to accept her.

[BMAC]

I think JP is right.  I dropped in a few JZBZ cages this spring and the girls had the queen released no later than 48 hours later with no hole poked in the candy. 

The queen hotel is really battery box. 

In the future if you want to slow down the release of your queen place duct tape over the candy end of the queen cage.  Then 2-3 days later go back and pull off the duct tape.

Don't use masking tape.  I think it is too paper like and they will chew thru it.

[JP]

I think JP is right.  I dropped in a few JZBZ cages this spring and the girls had the queen released no later than 48 hours later with no hole poked in the candy. 

The queen hotel is really battery box. 

In the future if you want to slow down the release of your queen place duct tape over the candy end of the queen cage.  Then 2-3 days later go back and pull off the duct tape.

Don't use masking tape.  I think it is too paper like and they will chew thru it.

BMAC, I cage swarm queens in these with queen candy and they routinely eat the candy out over night, and some of these swarms or 3lbs or less and do that.

With the numbers that Linda has in that hive they may break a record on release time.


...JP

[Daddys Girl]

*waits to find out what a queen motel is*

Tillie has gotten her queen, but I found images here: http://www.mannlakeltd.net/catalog/page35.html

[tillie]

Thanks, Daddy's Girl - those are just like what the supplier had.

Linda T in Atlanta

[Joseph Clemens]

Hey Cindi, the bees would most likely, imo, take to a mated queen, even if the colony has ripe queen cells. Unmated queens don't put out nearly as much scent as mated queens do. The mated queen once accepted would again, imo, destroy the queen cells.

M.B. had posted some info about this last night somewhere.


...JP

Uh-oh! Mated and/or laying queens most usually do not search out, nor destroy queen cells, especially queen cells that have bees attending/guarding them. Even if the bees learn to accept the newly introduced queen, I wouldn't wish to take the chance that a virgin might emerge and kill your newly introduced queen in a queenly battle to the death. Avoid this, destroy or remove ALL queen cells present in the hive, before attempting to introduce the new queen.

[JP]

Hey Cindi, the bees would most likely, imo, take to a mated queen, even if the colony has ripe queen cells. Unmated queens don't put out nearly as much scent as mated queens do. The mated queen once accepted would again, imo, destroy the queen cells.

M.B. had posted some info about this last night somewhere.


...JP

Uh-oh! Mated and/or laying queens most usually do not search out, nor destroy queen cells, especially queen cells that have bees attending/guarding them. Even if the bees learn to accept the newly introduced queen, I wouldn't wish to take the chance that a virgin might emerge and kill your newly introduced queen in a queenly battle to the death. Avoid this, destroy or remove ALL queen cells present in the hive, before attempting to introduce the new queen.

Good eye Joseph, thanks for catching my error, after all, I did say imo, well my opinions were about 1/2 right and I have read up a little and learned a couple of things that I found interesting.

A queenless hive will readily accept a virgin queen as a mated one has the scent of a possible intruder, hence the quarentine period, a package hive, different story.

I thought it was possible that mated, laying queens would kill queen cells, but from my readings, I see it is otherwise, and that virgin queens are the ones that do the killing as are the workers. Interesting stuff. Always good to learn something.

Its amazing how the bees pay attention to mated queens but will ignore virgins.


...JP

[Cindi]

The first queen to emerge from a cell with take on that duty of searching and destroying all the other queens that are still in their cell.  She has that agenda of death, she will be the only one to reign in the colony.  If a queen is introduced, she will, upon her emergence, seek out to destroy this new queen too.  Joseph is correct to say to remove all queen cells when introducing a caged queen.

I remember this because a bee pal was telling me that she tried to introduce a queen several times to her colony that she thought was queenless, those queens were killed over and over.  Think that she tried three times, obviously unsuccessful.  She found out later that the hive had began queen rearing and she didn't realize this.  Beautiful day in this wonderful life.  Cindi

[Michael Bush]

>I remember this because a bee pal was telling me that she tried to introduce a queen several times to her colony that she thought was queenless, those queens were killed over and over.

Generally these incidents happen because there IS a queen, it's just a virgin that hasn't started laying yet.  It's a common mistake to try to requeen a hive that has a queen that isn't laying yet.

[Cindi]

Michael, yep, makes 100% sense, for sure.  Best of a beautiful and great day, Cindi

[tillie]

So I put the new queen in the hive in her queen cage and the bees were all over the cage.  Four days later they had eaten the candy plug and released her.  I left the hive alone until yesterday.  When I opened the hive yesterday, there was no queenless roar, but there is no brood, no eggs, no larvae and her majesty was not running around with her red dot on her back, at least I didn't see her. 

You may remember that when I first discovered the queenless state of the hive, before the queen arrived, I put in a frame of brood and eggs.  That frame is now empty of all brood, and there is a queen cell which has been ripped open on the side, indicating that there has been a viable queen in the hive.  I saw no other queen cells or any capped brood or brood of any kind.  In other words, there were no regular queen cells opened at the tip.  As Michael pointed out, maybe there is a virgin queen who hasn't mated yet, or the new queen was in fact a virgin rather than mated queen.

For safety against queenlessness, I put another frame of eggs and brood into this hive, but I don't want to go through all of this again.  There are tons of bees in this hive.  If the hive doesn't make a queen, I'd like to combine it with another hive.

Does that sound like a reasonable plan?
Would you do a newspaper combine if I did this?

Linda T in Atlanta

[Cindi]

Linda, I don't see why the colony would not make another queen if they need it.  You have given them the resources by giving eggs and brood.  I seriously have my doubts that you would have received an UNMATED queen.

If you do decide to combine, use the newspaper method.  This ensures that the bees have time to mingle their scents, this is a surefired way of uniting colonies.

You need to give them a month to raise a queen and her become mated.  That is the time frame, then you should see eggs.  Beautiful and most wonderful day, Cindi