Queen not released yet - issues and questions

[theminor]

I'm a beginner beekeeper trying to go the treatment-free route. I purchased Michael Bush's book and I've read Volume 1 and most of Volume 2 - trying to finish all of it. I'm posting a summary of how things have gone so far, but this post may be a little long for some to read, so the gist of the immediate problem is summarized as this: The bees have been installed for a week and the queen has not yet been released from her cage. What should I do?

Here are the details: I only decided to try putting a hive in my yard a couple of weeks ago, so I was very late in preparation, getting bees, etc. Luckily a local store still had Nucs for sale (I live in North Georgia), and I was able to get a Nuc order placed in time. The Nuc arrived last weekend and I installed the bees on Saturday. My hive is going to include only 8-frame medium supers.

Unfortunately, the "Nuc" I got consisted of 3 large-size frames of brood plus a queen in a cage. I expected small or possibly medium size frames based on what the person at the store I ordered them from told me (he was apparently not their normal "bee guy" and told me to expect 3 small-size frames). So I had to "shim-up" one of my medium frames by 3 inches in order to accommodate the extra space for the 3 large frames (I built a box that was 3 inches tall using 3/4-inch plywood to use as this "shim"). I hope to get thelarge frames culled out later in the year. Anyway, I installed the three frames among my other medium frames when I installed the bees, with the brood-capped frames being interspersed between the empty frames (I'm going "foundationless" in my frames), i.e. EEBEBEBE. I was also disappointed to find that the queen was in a cage upon arrival. My understanding is that this practice is becoming more common, but this wasn't really a Nuc since it did not include an actively laying queen.

So I installed the ladies last weekend and checked them for the first time today (1 week later). I've been watching the outside of the hive every day but I didn't want to disturb them for a week or so. When I installed the queen cage last weekend, I think I messed up. In Michael Bush's book he suggests one method of installing queens is just to open the queen cage and put her on the floor of the hive and dump the rest of the bees on her (I'm simplifying the description greatly). Well my mistake was that I opened the queen cage but did not remove the candy. I did, however put the cage on the floor. So I just took the queen cage, pulled the cap to expose the candy, and put the cage on the floor (it is a wire mesh floor, not solid). Then, I installed the three frames of brood and dumped all the remaining bees into the hive.

The bees seem to be very active - they've been working hard and have built 2 or 3 frames out about 3/4 of the way with wax (the foundation-less method seems to be mostly working, although a frame or two seems to be building "thicker" in places. Is this normal?). They have been flying in and out all week with the workers returning with plenty of pollen and food.

BUT the queen has not yet been released! When I visited today, I inspected the queen cage and it appears that they have eaten some of the candy down, but there is still 1/4 to 1/2 inch to go I think. It is hard to tell since it is a plastic queen cage and the plastic is sort of cloudy. I didn't really know what to do today while I had the hive open, so I made an executive decision to hang the cage rather than keeping it on the floor of the hive. In hindsight I think maybe I should have poked a hole in the candy to speed up the process but instead I hung the cage, hoping they'd work it faster. There were plenty of bees around the queen cage, interested in it and even staying on it and when I picked it up.

So what should I do? Should I open it back up tomorrow and release the queen or poke a hole in the candy with a needle or something? Or should I just leave them alone? Or something else? Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[Rick 1456]

Interesting,,,,but confusing. Seems to me there are some possibilities here. Your definition of a nuc and mine are the same. Sounds like you got a package of bees with some brood and a hopefully mated queen. Look and see if they are making queen cells. Not cups. If you got brood, you very well may have gotten eggs, and larvae that are potential queen cell candidates. They would do this if the queen is a dud. The bees lack of enthusiasm to release her makes me wonder. IMHO, at this point, I'd release her. It either is or it ain't. The sooner you know, the better. She will be accepted or no. If she is and there are Q cells, I think they would tear them down. I don't know why they would even build them if the queen was good.
Hopefully, someone with more experience than I will weigh in on this.
Best to you

[theminor]

Yes I agree - not really a Nuc that I got. It was more like a package with some brood frames. I meant to mention that when I inspected everything today a good bit of the brood have hatched. There are still some that are capped over but many are now empty. Hopefully the capped ones are not rotten eggs but we'll see - it has been a week so I'd expect them to hatch soon...

There was one frame that looked like it could have been the beginning of a super cell, but I'm not 100% on that.

So that is one vote for releasing the queen. Thanks, Rick. Any other thoughts?

[Rick 1456]

Super cell? Do you mean supercedure cell ? Cups?? They look different. Bees like insurance. They like to have potential queens in the making sometimes. Just MHO. Unless there is jelly in them, ignore them for now. Bees are amazing. Just when you think things are askew, they have things under control. Monitor for "disaster" and see what happens.

[mrqb]

u can just leave her be or u say installed a week,as 7 days u could release her,if the cage has a cork in other end just pull it out and let her walk into hive,but be sure she doesn't fly away

[Michael Bush]

>The bees have been installed for a week and the queen has not yet been released from her cage. What should I do?

Release her. But back to why, is the cork removed from the candy end of the cage? Anyway, pop the cork on the OTHER end from the candy and lay the cage on the bottom and let her walk out.

>Unfortunately, the "Nuc" I got consisted of 3 large-size frames of brood plus a queen in a cage. I expected small or possibly medium size frames based on what the person at the store I ordered them from told me (he was apparently not their normal "bee guy" and told me to expect 3 small-size frames). So I had to "shim-up" one of my medium frames by 3 inches in order to accommodate the extra space for the 3 large frames (I built a box that was 3 inches tall using 3/4-inch plywood to use as this "shim"). I hope to get thelarge frames culled out later in the year.

The shim will work for now.

> Anyway, I installed the three frames among my other medium frames when I installed the bees, with the brood-capped frames being interspersed between the empty frames (I'm going "foundationless" in my frames), i.e. EEBEBEBE.

That is spreading the bees pretty thin. I might put one empty in the brood nest but with only three frames of bees I wouldn't do two.

> I was also disappointed to find that the queen was in a cage upon arrival. My understanding is that this practice is becoming more common, but this wasn't really a Nuc since it did not include an actively laying queen.

Hard to say for sure what you got. But some will cage the queen in a nuc so she doesn't get squished by frames jostling during transit...

>So I installed the ladies last weekend and checked them for the first time today (1 week later). I've been watching the outside of the hive every day but I didn't want to disturb them for a week or so. When I installed the queen cage last weekend, I think I messed up. In Michael Bush's book he suggests one method of installing queens is just to open the queen cage and put her on the floor of the hive and dump the rest of the bees on her (I'm simplifying the description greatly). Well my mistake was that I opened the queen cage but did not remove the candy. I did, however put the cage on the floor. So I just took the queen cage, pulled the cap to expose the candy, and put the cage on the floor (it is a wire mesh floor, not solid). Then, I installed the three frames of brood and dumped all the remaining bees into the hive.

Since your circumstances seem a bit odd, I would be unsure how long the queen has been with the bees and what exactly you got. So I would probably do a candy release. Putting the queen on the bottom, however, is risky as cold weather could result in her being abandoned.

>The bees seem to be very active - they've been working hard and have built 2 or 3 frames out about 3/4 of the way with wax (the foundation-less method seems to be mostly working, although a frame or two seems to be building "thicker" in places. Is this normal?).

With or without foundation the honey tends to be thicker. More so if you don't have the frames tightly together.

>BUT the queen has not yet been released! When I visited today, I inspected the queen cage and it appears that they have eaten some of the candy down, but there is still 1/4 to 1/2 inch to go I think. It is hard to tell since it is a plastic queen cage and the plastic is sort of cloudy. I didn't really know what to do today while I had the hive open, so I made an executive decision to hang the cage rather than keeping it on the floor of the hive.

An improvement, but after a week I would just release her.

[theminor]

Thanks, Michael - very good advice all around. I'll get out there and release her this afternoon. I'll report back once I do.

Regarding the frames of brood that I interspersed between the empty frames, it sounds like it woudl have been better to keep one or two of the frames together. When I inspected everything yesterday, the bees have built-out the frames that are between the full frames by a fair amount. They aren't complete yet, but maybe 1/2 way there or so. Do you still think I should move the full frames back together?

Thanks again to all!

[Solomon Parker]

That's correct, it's better to allow the hive to build a large contiguous broodnest before inserting frames. It's not a good idea to do when the hive is small or if there is a chance of chilled brood.

[theminor]

OK I'll move them all together. Thanks!

[theminor]

OK the deed is done. The queen should be free now. I poked through the remaining candy and hung the cage back where it was as quickly as I could. I was worried she'd fly off but everything seems to have gone smoothly. I could have pulled the plug out of the other hole, I suppose but I was thinking the remaining candy residue woudl slow her enough so that I had time to get the cage back where it was and close the hive back up. I hated to disturb the bees again a day later like this but it definitely seemed like the way to go.

So now the question is when do I go back and check on things? I'll be very anxious to know whether they accept her and whether she starts laying or not. What would be a good time-frame to shoot for to check in on things next?

Thanks again for all the support.

[Michael Bush]

>So now the question is when do I go back and check on things?

I would have popped the other cork and let her out... but I would leave them alone now for a week or so. The only real reason to check is to make sure they are build comb where they should.

[theminor]

Thanks Michael - I'll check in on them next weekend to be sure she is laying and to be sure they are keeping the comb straight. After that, I assume I shoudl not be checking in very often, right? Maybe every 3 weeks or so during the summer?

[jadell]

If the cage is still hanging on the frames, you should get it out sooner than the weekend. You'll have comb drawn in the empty space and not on the frames. It's a horrible feeling to tear out comb you know they need but you can't let them build it there.

[theminor]

If the cage is still hanging on the frames, you should get it out sooner than the weekend. You'll have comb drawn in the empty space and not on the frames. It's a horrible feeling to tear out comb you know they need but you can't let them build it there.

Hmm good point. The weather has gotten much colder today so I'll need to wait until Wednesday or Thursday, assuming the current forecast is accurate. If I do open the hive at that point, can I expect to see eggs (or hopefully find the queen)? I'd like to kill 2 birds with one stone - that is, take out the cage and check to see if the queen is laying. That way I won't have to disturb them again later to check for presence of the queen...

[jadell]

I would just take out the cage and push everything back together. Inspect another day.

[mrobinson]

For whatever it may be worth, I released the queen directly into the hive this way:

• Open package, remove queen cage, shake bees off, unroll the metal tape that was holding it in place, set in bottom of hive.
• Dump 'em... shake shake... dump some more... repeat...
• Pick up the queen-cage, remove non-candy cork, place (gloved) finger over hole.
• Set the cage inside on the floor among the bees, screen up, hole facing sideways not against the sides. Calmly remove hand.
• Unhurriedly close up, noticing that she was on her way toward the exit.

She wasn't the slightest bit interested in flying away. (If she had been, I'd have lightly spritzed her wings with a mist of plain water before removing the cork.) And, that was that. Wish I'd had a couple of push-pins with me to help get the cork out. I can see for myself she's on her way out, and the cage will be well away from where the combs will eventually be. Several days later (there actually was no reason to check so soon...) the cages were still there, forgotten and empty.

Problem avoided = problem solved.

[theminor]

Sounds like a good way to go. If I have to get a new queen, this is what I'll do. I'm thinking I need to open the hive this weekend to see if she is laying. I opened the hive to remove the empty queen cage on Wednesday of last week but I couldn't tell if there was any laying activity. I assume that if I open it this weekend I should see more capped brood to prove the queen is actively laying. I can also try to look for eggs, but since I'm inexperienced, I'm not sure whether I'll be able to spot them!

Any other thoughts/suggestions?

[theminor]

OK so I have a new possible issue. I might just be worrying about nothing, but today I went to look at the hive (I did not open it, just looking at it from the outside) and there are a lot of suddenly congregating just outside the hive on the landing board. Not enough to appear that they are about to swarm or something, but many more than normal. I took a picture at about 8:00 PM this evening

photo (1).jpg

The sun will be going down in about half an hour. Most of the bees in the pictuer were not flying away but were just crawling around outside the hive.

I don't recall this type of behavior in the books I've read so I wanted to be sure everything is OK. Can someone reassure an overly cautous beginner beekeeper?

[mrqb]

That is not an issue the bees are hot so they hang out on the porch,in another month or two they will beard when it gets hot ,then you will see alot of bees hanging from the hive,normal activity

[theminor]

OK whew thanks. Now that you mention the bearding I do remember reading about that. Thanks very much for the quick reply!