Queen Banking

[BeeMan_2010]

I would like to know how long you can bank queens before any damage to the queens?

[GeeBee]

One week without of attendants, two weeks as a virgin in a hive, four weeks mated in a bank hive is what I was told. After two weeks, virgins won't mate anymore, so be sure to factor in mating time to that as well.

[Michael Bush]

If you mean in a hive with a lot of other caged queens, although I try not to bank them when I sell queens, I've experimented and saw no problems no matter how long they were banked. They would start laying almost immediately and do quite well. I think the damage is in banking too SOON rather than too long.

[jim lyon]

I have heard of queens being banked up to two months without problems. Be sure any banked queens don't have attendants in the cage.

[Ozone]

Why don't they have attendants?

[WI-beek]

I think people have actually banked queens over winter.

[jim lyon]

Why don't they have attendants?

The caged attendants have a much shorter life span than the queen and are a problem when they die. The hive bees will feed the queen just fine through the screen.
I have heard some stories of overwintered queen banks as well, just not sure how they came out or what climate it was done in. Sounds risky to me.

[DonShackelford]

I have a related question that I'd like to get some input on;

I'm getting some queens in the mail next week. The weather forecast here is for several days of rain at that time. (Murphy's Law!) Will it hurt the queens to leave them set a few days before using?

[jim lyon]

They would probably be ok for a few days with the attendants in the cages, just keep an eye out for dead bees and keep them at room temperature in the dark. A good option, though, if you are splitting a large double is to set your nuc up above an excluder with the old queen below. Then when you get your queen just set the top box off on its own bottom insert the queen and you are good to go, if there is a large population imbalance after a day of flying then reverse them back. Ideally you would move your nuc to a new location.