Breeder Queen

[divebee]

Soon I will be receiving a couple breeder queens. I want to protect them as much as possible and use them in a limited way, just to produce enough eggs/brood to raise a few queens and drones. I was thinking on keeping each in a nuc box, and I know they provide the press in cages to introduce them. Should they just free roam the nuc box as any other queen would do or what other protective measures can be taken to keep from losing these expensive queens?

[Finman]

200% sure method to save valuable queens is make a nuc over big hive. Big hive gives warm to nuc.

Take a frame or two of emerging bees from hive and shake all bees away. Put that frame into top nuc and let bees emerge 3 days. Close all holes so no robbers may go in. Make own entrance to opposite direction.

Take a rame where bees have emerged in the middle and there is a emerging ring around hole. So brood in borders are old enough to emerge soon.

[Finman]

And... let queen free on frame. Emerged bees do not know what is their queen. But don't let old bees there.

[Michael Bush]

You could clip them too. That way at least they won't fly away. smile.gif

[RicDuck]

Be sure push in cage is deeply inbedded in comb on all sides. I lost an expensive breeder queen after bees tunneled under one corner of cage. Take the extra effort to trim away cross wires on push in cage (horizontal wires on first few sections of the vertical edges of cage) so wire penetrates deep into existing brood and comb. Make sure wires are going into the comb and not just mashing comb. I think that is why bees tunneled under cage in my case.

[divebee]

So put a frame of emerging brood in the nuc and sweep all the bees off the frame, so no bees are in the nuc other than the brood. Let the brood emerge for about 3 days, and now we have bees in the nuc and no queen yet. Then introduce the queen in her push in cage or just turn her loose on a frame? Will these young bees serve her as an attendant? Then open a hole the opposite direction from the hive it's sitting on. I'm sure some honey and pollen must be present on a few frames... Does that about sum it up, or did I miss something?

Thanks