Making hives with new queens?

[DennisT]

I read up to page 20- seems nobody has asked this or anything similar.
I have two queens in cages with nurse bees. I'd like to put each into a 10 frame brood box. I have plenty of brood/pollen/honey frames. What would the steps be to accomplish this?
Would 2 frames of honey/pollen and two frames of brood(brood in the middle b/t honey frames), then empty frames on the outside be the trick?
I need to do this in the apiary where the brood is coming from. Will there be any issues if some of the foragers go back home?
Should the queen cage be placed in immediately or should things settle a day or two?
Thanks.

[Ruben]

Are you putting the queens in hive that have bees in them? Your description sort of sounds like there are no bees in the hives. I would leave them in the cage for 3-4 days to be safe. I would remove a frame of pollen and put the cage in the middle of the hive. I hope this helped but I don't understand about the issue of foragers going back home. Are these queenless hives or what?

[DennisT]

I'd be removing brood and honey frames out of some existing hives, along with the workers/foragers with those frames.
From past experience I've found the foragers will generally go back leaving the workers tending the brood.
I'm wondering how soon I should add the queen (in cage) to this new "hive".
Also- how long can the queen live in the cage before being placed into a hive? If put in the cage Monday- can she wait till Wednesday evening?
Thanks!

[peggjam]

Wait 12-24 hours before putting in the queens, make sure they are caged when you do this. It is the same as introducing a new queen, need to do the same steps. Ten frames is too big a space. You would be better off to start these in a 5 frame nuc. Make sure you put in a frame of pollen, and one of uncapped honey, should do fine.

[DennisT]

Thanks very much for the help.

[DennisT]

Can the queen live a few days in the cage before being placed into a hive?
She was put in Monday, and now won't be installed till Thursday.
Thanks again.

[peggjam]

As long as she has attendant bees, should be fine. If not, put duct tape over the candy end of the cage and place screen side down, on top of the frames, above an excluder on a strong hive, they should tend to her until you need her.

[ainsof]

Peggjam:

Regarding your last post:

Wouldn't the presence of the caged queen disrupt/disturb the activities of the existing queen in the hive? (That's what the excluder is for, right?)

Would having two sources of queen scent confuse the workers?

Are there any possible negative repercussions to doing this, and, how long can the caged queen be stored this way?

[peggjam]

"Wouldn't the presence of the caged queen disrupt/disturb the activities of the existing queen in the hive? (That's what the excluder is for, right?)"

I bought some nucs from Joel, and he had caged the queens (I got the wrong ones)so the guy who was supposed to get them wouldn't lose a queen on the way home. When I transfered this nuc, I found the caged queen, I let her out, and the bees balled her....Hmmmm I thought as I put her back in the cage...I wonder why? So I dug around and found a laying queen in the hive already. I can only surmize that the caged queen had been caged long enough for them to make a new one, or that it was a swarm cell, but Joel caged the queen before they could swarm. Anyways, this queen was alone in the cage, with no candy, and survived only at the whim of the workers. It didn't seem to bother the laying queen that she was there, as she was doing business as usual.

"Are there any possible negative repercussions to doing this, and, how long can the caged queen be stored this way?"

I had the nuc a week before I transfered it, I also found 2 other nucs in the same condition, 1 with a capped queencell, the other with only the caged queen present. I should think you could do this for about 2 weeks safely. I reccommand the excluder as a safty precaution only.

[ainsof]

Good deal. Thanks for the info.