How long to keep a queen?

[margot]

My new queens arrived just before a record cold snap, with rain and temps in the 50's predicted for the next week or so. I don't want to chill the brood in making splits--but how long will a queen survive in a cage? Would it be better to risk opening the hive in cold weather?

[HarryVanderpool]

Hi Margot!
Let me tell you our procedure.
Doesn't mean it's right, or the best; but it works!
A couple of days before we expect our queens to arrive, we will do a hive inspection on a healthy, populous colony and take the time to find the queen.
The reason we MUST find the queen is so that we can pull 2 or 3 frames of brood and set up a queen bank without fear of the queen being in the group!
We take a nuc box and drop at least one frame of capped brood with attendant bees and one or two more frames of various stages of brood, also at least one frame of honey and one of solid pollen and drop them into a nuc box.
Remember we found the queen? We set that frame aside, (set it in a nuc box so that the queen didn't drop into the grass and get lost) and now that our nuc has the correct frames, we shake 3 or 4 frames of bees into the nuc until it is overflowing with bees and then quickly place the lid on.
This nuc is then placed in the same yard where is convienent.
The field bees will return to the parent colony and that's ok, we need the nurse bees that will take care of the new queens.
Now drop the frame with the queen back in the parent hive with replacement comb.
When your queens arrive, take a frame with no foundation and tape the queen cages with scotch tape from the top bar with 3/8" clearance from one another with the candy end up.
You can nail another crossmember at midpoint and have two levels of queen cages on one frame. This will hold about 32 3 hole cages max.
As long as the queen bank that you have set up has emerging brood, feed, and no queens get loose, you should be able to keep queens in a bank for weeks.
:cool:

[Michael Bush]

I've kept them a week just keeping them in a quiet dark 60 to 70 F place and puttting a drop of water on the screen once a day.

I've kept them several weeks in a queen bank. I make mine with a five frame queenless nuc and a 3/4" shim and lay the cages on the top bars.

[franc]

Ive kept several for about 10 days in a deep super with a few frames of bees above a screened bottom board the Hive below provides some extra heat.