queen introduction

[Matt NY]

This is 101 right?

I just got a couple queens in the mail. I am making up some nucs, I have that part.

I need oversimplified directions as to how to put the queen in.

The queens are in the plastic boxes w/attendants.

I guess having never done this I am starting to feel like I may have missed something in my reading and discussions. Probably just a lack of confidence and I need a bit of support.

[peggjam]

Make up your queenless nucs, wait 6-8 hours(this can be done in as little as four hours, but you might not want to push it).

Before you introduce your queens, you should remove the attendants. You can do this by using a dark room in your house, with the only source of light being a closed window. Do Not do this until you are ready to place the queen into the nucs. Open the small tab in the plastic queen cage(you should be at the window at this point, remember, closed window), and allow the attendants to come out, try to keep the queen in, but if you can't, it's ok, you'll just have to put her back into the cage when all the attendants are out.

Then place the cage with the queen into the nuc, between several frames of brood, it can be placed with candy end up, or candy end down, doesn't matter. Leave the cap on the candy tube for a day or two, then remove the cap and leave nucs alone for 10 days, this will give the queen time to start laying and set up her broodnest.

After 10 days, do a very breif inspection, only looking for a pattern, remove the empty queen cage, and leave them alone for another 10 days. After that you should be good to go:).

[Troy]

i just did this 2 weeks ago and all 4 queens were accepted just fine.

Mine arrived in JZBZ plastic queen cages.

The day before the queens arrived, I went out to the hives and removed the existing queens. We want them queenless for about 24 hrs.

I opened the cages in the bathroom at home and let the attendants out. Put the queen back in and and high tailed it out to the bee yards to insert them.

I put the cages in one of the middle frames near some open brood. I just mashed the cages into the wax making sure the candy side was facing upward and making sure the wax did not cover the candy opening.

I made a quick check a few days later to make sure they were out and all was going fine.

[Matt NY]

thanks,
Matt

[mwjohnson]

I like too release the attendants too, but I've done sucessful intro's without, and know guy's who don't, so I guess you could skip that....

My wife is not gonna be too pleased with me INTENTIONALY releasing bees in the bathroom...or any room....so I release them in the bee yard,where they can drift into a hive after you let them out.

I use my veil as an improvised " queen muff" to keep the queen confined while releasing the attendant's...which works good.

Oh yeah...I learned that sticky bees don't fly real good and can quickly be seperated without fear of having the queen fly off or getting hurt as you fumble around trying to get here back in that little hole.... :o :confused:

Good luck
Mark