[ski's bees]

4 days ago I made up 4 nucs and with brood and honey and put a candy cage with a purchased mated queen. Today I checked to take out the cages if the queen was released. One of the nucs had several open queen cells and at least one capped cell. The queen is not free yeat but almost. What should I do don't want to waste $25 and want as many bucks to work out as possible.

 

[jmgi]

How long did you wait to introduce the caged queens to the nucs after you made up the nucs? Sounds to me like that hive already started raising a queen of their own, and releasing the queen now may get her killed. You need to destroy every last queen cell in that hive, cork the candy end of the queen cage, and then let the queen out of the cage in about a day manually, that's what I would do at this point.

 

[ski's bees]

Made up the nucs and put the queens in the same day... Just now plugged up the cage and killed the queen cells. I have my fingers crossed. Anything special I should look for In a few days before I set her free in there?
Thanks for the advice!

 

[Michael Bush]

Overnight is probably optimal. 2 hours is minimal. 2 days is too long... they will start queen cells.