virgin success?

[beenerds]

I have been putting virgin queen into a few of our hive, and have had poor success rate 20% or less.

I get them in cages and with candy and let them be released by the hive. After 2 weeks I have a little peek and nothing... We have a good amount of drones in the area and I have a large commercial operation within 1 mile of our yard.

Am I doing something wrong?

[Tom G. Laury]

They must be 48 hours or less since emergence. As they age the acceptance rate declines. However if there is no flow or you not feeding will be slow to start. You can tell a lot by the bees behavior: Calm and organized, OK; running and noisy, queenless.

[Michael Bush]

I never had much luck with introducing virgins. But a lot of smoke seems to help. I have very good luck introducing queen cells.

[alpha6]

Queen cells are the way to go.

[BillsHoneyBees]

Cold days or rainy days will affect the mating rates. Perhaps many of the girls are missing their mating flights.