Storing queens during winter months?

[nelgknat2001]

I wanted to ask if anyone has been able to store more Queens durring the winter months! It has come to a point that some of my hives are so little in honey for the winter and will conbune these hives. But what to do with the Queen? I don't want to killer her off and the other Queen in the hive will kill her off! so if anyone has any ideas how to winter the not so strong hives and keep the Queen alive, Please let me Know! I thought about banking her but she would not be laying during the winter months and I think that's not a good thing to do!

So please send your thoughts or ideas to me to keep all bees alive and yes Queens too!

Thank you
Tank's of Honey Apiary
La Porte City Iowa

[nelgknat2001]

If any ideas please let me Know at nelgknat2001@yahoo.com

[riverrat]

if your hives are week but stong enough to reduce down to a 5 frame nuc you could try to over winter in a 5 on 5 2 double deep nucs set up once set up feed to get there weight up

[aszalan]

you could try overwintering as 'heated nucs'

http://www.beesource.com/eob/nucs.htm

[brooksbeefarm]

My question is,why would you want to go to the trouble to keep a queen that wasn!t a good producer?I would combine and split with a new queen in the spring.

[albee]

I like new Queens. They build up faster and swarm less. Next spring make splits and watch how much better your new queens do next to the older ones.