QUEEN BANK

[BULLSEYE BILL]

Last year I didn't buy any queens at all. The year before I bought queens three different times. Twice they were in the traditional queen boxes with attendants. Once from Kona in a queen bank.

The Kona queen bank was a huge success for me. I was able with the feeding of 1-1 syrup misting in the side of the box, to keep them (26) for just over two weeks and never lost a queen.

I received my thirty PBA queens from Mountain Honey last Thursday. I went to the farm Friday afternoon and readied all the equipment I would need for an early start.

I pulled queens, put some of them in queen boxes, and pinched the rest, on Saturday planning to install the new ones on Sunday.

I kept the sponge in the banks wet with syrup for the attendants to feed the queens, but the attendants seemed to stay at either end of the JZ-BZ bank.

When I oened the banks to start installing the queens I found that 18 out of 30 queens were dead.

I kept them at room temperature, out of direct sunlight, and well fed. What could have happened?

I'm glad that I kept some of the old queens in cages. I had to direct release some of them in the newly queenless hives by squirting them down with syrup and HBH.

What a mess. :mad:

[Beemaninsa]

Wowzers Bullseye, sorry that happened to you. The banks I have received had candy in the bottom and a wet sponge so you would only need to add water, but you would think a little sugar syrup would be great. Are you sure the queens arrived alive? Perhaps they were insured?

[BULLSEYE BILL]

Well, crud.
There won't be any replacement queens available until mid May. Guess I'll have to do some combines or raise some from my better colonys.

I just love it when I get chastized by a lady on the phone for not opening the box at the post office to check the contents. "Why did you wait so long to release them?" Like I live in a friggin bee yard. :mad:

I get them on Thursday, have to work on Friday, drive the 75 miles to the farm after work, the first chance I have to inspect them is Saturday morning.

Why shouldn't I expect them to be fine for three days given proper care?

I bet they got overheated at the post office. Yes they are insured, but does that help my queenless hives or the crop that I was hopeing to have?

[Beemaninsa]

I agree with you. More often than not I have to wait several days before instaling queens. I check them soon after arrival only because I mark them. Next time, if you decide to open them in the Post Office could you please take pictures? On second thought, you might get arrested for bio-terrorism of a federal facility.

[Jim Fischer]

> for not opening the box at the post office...

If you tried that, I'm afraid that the folks
at the post office would never invite you
back to pick up your bees at the back door.

The staff at my local post office are very
nice, and do a great job at calling me the
moment that bees arrive, placing them in
a nice cool dark place, and even alerting
me to reports from the sorting center that
"bees are in the system", giving me a day's
advance notice, but I would NEVER open any
such package at the post office.

This year, they called my cellphone and said
"Jim, your weapons of Buzz Destruction are here!" [img]smile.gif[/img]

[loggermike]

The girls at our post office always call promptly.A hundred came in a battery box a couple weeks ago and the gal said "They dont seem happy".I told her they just want out to fly around a bit so you could let them out and most would go back in eventually.She looked at me like I was nuts!
Never had a problem with the post office EXCEPT 50 queens from Georgia came in a cardboard box that looked like someone stacked a refrigerator on top of.Several of the wooden cages were actually crushed but luckily the queens were still ok.
Sorry to hear about the dead queens ,Bill.I would like to get some of those queens ,but now I'm nervous about the post office on their end.

[BULLSEYE BILL]

>but now I'm nervous about the post office on their end.

We will see how it goes in mid May when the replacements come. They said that they had not had any other problems, if true, then it could have been at my post office.

[loggermike]

Guess I will order some.I have to admire their breeding philosophy-it seems right-but too scary for me!I hate bringing in truckloads of deadouts.
Let us know how they do.

[Ricko]

After coming through another winter, it's time to evaluate my spring build-up. So far, I've got one queen that isn't up to par and will be replaced with a fresh queen from the folks at Taber's Honey Bee Genetics.
It seems that early in the season queens are in short supply as replacements. Based on that observance, my thinking is that maybe one should order 3 or 4 extra queens early. To keep on hand just for replacing failing queens, and those queens that don't get used right away could be incorporated into splits later on in the first part of next month when the early evaluation period is over and queens are easier to come by.

So my question is what is an easy way to bank these extra queens for 3-4 weeks, keeping them alive just in case they're needed during the spring build-up period?

[Michael Bush]

I set up a five frame nuc with emerging brood, honey, open brood and no queen and put the queens on the top bars screen down and a 3/4" shim on top to make room for the cages.

[loggermike]

Its best not to bank queens for more than a few days,unless you have no choice.While you can keep them alive for a lot longer,I feel the stress of going so long without laying for a new young queen isnt good(like a cow not getting milked).I want to have them all in the nucs by the 3rd day.Best to keep them laying in nucs.Just my opinion(made up 200 nucs in early April between snow storms).