[BeeCurious]

I was going to expose the queen cage candy on Monday but it's going to be raining then, through wednesday. I was wondering if I could place a little piece of thin cardboard or something in the candy tube that would slow the release down. I thought the gray carton on the back of a writting pad might work well.

I also thought of wrapping newspaper around the candy tube about four times...

I think I'm just fighting Mother Nature and will need to wait until the rain passes.

If you have a technique to delay access to the candy by approx 48 hours please let me know.

 

[Ardilla]

You can put a piece of marshmallow in the hole against the candy.

I'm not sure it's necessary though. What is wrong with the queen getting released when it is raining?

 

[concrete-bees]

duct tape works but again why would you be worried about the rain - all you are doing is poping the top and checking on her

if its just the candy tube then she might be out running around after 3 days anyway

just remember that every day that she is caged is 1500 eggs that didnt get layed - add 3 days to that and we are talking about a lot of bees

so me personally would pop the top and take out the cage and watch the worker bees carefully that are on the cage ..... are the sticking there tonges through the wire or are the bitting at the wire ??? if they are sticking there tounges through - let her go --- if they are bitting at her - dont release her and check the frames for a loose queen or eggs -

sometimes you get a spare queen - i had 4 this year

 

[franktrujillo]

rain,no problem let the bees realse her.the cage is for introduction so the bees get use to her.some bees readly accept the queens i did a split yesterday just ordered queens split the boxes added queens with cage and they wasn't even aggressive towards them..since it was raining just hurried alittle so i listend to them this mornThey sound fine im giong to check this morn.I may realse them.....

 

[BeeCurious]

The queens are Russians.

Placing carton in/over the cage candy was a technique used in the past to delay release. I thought someone may have current experience.

If it can be avoided, I'm not going to open hives in a rain storm to expose the candy.

 

[BeeCurious]

Bump...

Any suggestions or experiences to share which are relative to my original and follow-up postings?

 

[Michael B]

Bump...

Any suggestions or experiences to share which are relative to my original and follow-up postings?

When hiving russian queens, it is good to allow more time to pass for acceptance. What I have done was just place the queen cage in the hive with the cork in and leave it for three days then remove it.

If your candy is a bit dry and hard it will take longer for the bees to get through it.

 

[Bens-Bees]

What is wrong with the queen getting released when it is raining?

Nothing, but the thing is that he's going to open them up before it starts raining and pull the corks out, but they aren't due to be released until Monday when it will be raining and he doesn't want to open the hives in the rain so he wants to expose them now while it's not raining in such a way that the queens won't be released until they were due to be released on Monday, while it's raining. At least that's what I got out of his original post, I could be mistaken.

BeeCurious, I wouldn't wrap the cages in case she suffocates (though I doubt that'd happen, I haven't tried it so I don't know if the Oxygen exchange rate through multiple layers of paper would be rapid enough to keep her from suffocating). I am thinking that the marshmallow suggestion is probably your best bet, or maybe pieces of a candy-cane in place of the corks would slow them down a bit more than the marshmallow perhaps.

 

[BeeCurious]

Monday is the day I wanted to expose the candy.

It looks like I will be the one with "current experience" as I placed small discs of thin (1/16") cardboard in the candy tubes. I will return to see if the queens were released after the weather clears on Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm guessing that the cardboard may add 24 hours to the release time, but that's just a guess.

The queens are in California Mini Queen Cages that have a plastic tube extending out from them. It is just the tube that I thought of wrapping with newspaper.

I'm going to make my own queen introduction frames that will accept the mini cages with their candy tubes... But I would prefer using the same screen that Koehnen's use. It is finer and is supposed to reduce injuries to the queens.

 

[jbw]

I have seen masking tape over the tube to delay the release.