[crewdog61]

This coming Monday 2014/05/19 a buddy is getting 3 packages and 3 extra queens. (Why the extra queens do not ask me, his thinking is to have them as back up) To save these extra queens can you start small Nucs with bees from each of his packages? It is his first year, he is still learning. I have bees am willing to help with some frames of brood one per Nuc along with frame of honey one per Nuc, but wondering if there will be enough bees to start these small Nucs and keep the brood and queen warm.

Have talked to him that if he does this his package bee hive numbers will start out small

Thoughts or ideas would be great..

 

[Michael Bush]

I would not have ordered the queens, but since you have them, I can see trying not to lose them. A half pound of bees might be able to struggle through with one of those queens.

 

[Colobee]

Queen bank them on one of your hives, or make up some splits from yours - if you have enough left after fulfilling your standing obligation.

Otherwise - maybe someone is looking for queens on short notice?

 

[Rader Sidetrack]

A slightly different plan would be to make some splits from Crewdog61's existing hives, then use the buddy's queens for those splits.

Then you two get to negotiate over who gets to keep what ....

 

[crewdog61]

Thanks Colobee making some calls to some of the local bee keepers,

But may just make some splits to save those extra queens.

Never have banked queens. What is the best way to do that?

 

[Colobee]

Need 3 queens
Started by Bee Whisperer, Today (5/17/14) 06:27 PM

Banking - depends on your setup, but anyway you can separate a queen from some of her workers, who will tend the caged queens.

For example, place a queen excluder over the (queen and) brood chamber, place a couple wooden slats on top of the excluder so the colony queen can't get to the cage screens, lay the caged queens screen side down on the slats and cover/close it up. Or if you want a little more room between, or have already supered - put a super over the excluder, and place the cages screen side down on the tops of the super frames. They'll lay flat like that under the deep side of an inner cover. Centered is better. The worker bees will find them and take nice care of the queens, although they might not be so kind to any attendants in there with her.

I just read that this technique has been used to effectively store queens for a couple months, and once, accidentally, for 7 months. I've done it myself for several weeks, but could never hold onto a caged queen any longer than that. She's got a job to do!

oh yeah - option 3 - send 'em on out to me, and I'll store them for you - for a small "user" ( as in them) fee - he-he.