How to put the queen in the hive.

Does this hive already have a queen? Tell us more about what you are wanting to do.

Tom

Thanks for the quick reply. The hive is queenless and broodless. I think I goofed up a split earlier this year
(I was successful with another) and they were just going to live out their life and die I guess. I don't have but a few thousand bees in there now.
So, she won't have any competition for sure. I hate to borrow more bees or brood from another hive at this point because of the coming flow.
Thanks,

You can put the cage in the hive, make sure the cork/stopper is removed.

Are there as many bees as in a package? If the population is small you might want to add a frame of brood.

Tom

Okay sure. There are less bees than a package would have. So I will need to add some brood if I can.
I have weakened my two strong hives by taking brood already though.
Thanks for your advice. I've never added just a queen before.

Assuming there is candy in the cage I would pull the cork on the candy end and put the cage with the screen down wedged between two frames. With a standard Benton three hole cage this often requires removing a frame temporarily. If you staple a piece of tin (you can cut a piece from an aluminum can) or cardboard you can set it up to not fall down in. Make sure they aren't long enough to go through and hit the queen...

Glad your queen got there.
I would put the cage in the hive in between the topbars of two frames with the cap still on the candy for a day or two. Then go back after a day or two and pull the cap off the candy end.
This would help them except her before being released.
It also helps to remove the attendants from the cage so only the queen would be in the cage. But if you are uncomfortable doing this, it is not necessary just helps the acceptance a bit. But if you do this make sure you are in your truck in-case the queen gets out she wont fly away.

Thanks Deepsouth. Yes, she got here. I was worried because it was 26 this morning. LOL. She is in the kitchen now with a wood heater.
Thanks Michael. I will locate it just like that with the screen down.
I appreciate all of your help.

this may be too late... you said it will be dark, so I am wondering if you mean you are going to do this at night... bees don't like being bothered at dark. if you must, wear some protection and smoke them. red light they apparently don't see -- they will fly to a normal flashlight and find you. they may land and crawl around on you, even riding back into your house.

You can place the cage inside between the 2 frames. I make a small wire hook to hang
the small cage so it would not fall off to the bottom. Don't do it at night because
they will need to get use to her scent anyway. So day time hiving her is o.k.

If the hive has been queenless for too long, they may not accept her well. I would do it in daytime, I never open a hive at night. I would set the queen in her cage on top of the top bars and watch the hive's bees reaction to her. They will let you know if they are ready to accept her or not. Good luck.

At one time I baby sit less than 1 frame of worker bees that was queenless thru out the winter.
Came early Spring they were eager to have a new queen. So I bought them a new laying queen just to see.
And they accepted her happily though not many workers was left. You can say they were dying to finally received a new queen.
I was able to make 7 splits from that booming hive by July.
Yes, definitely a reaction/acceptance queen test to see. If they are fanning and all over the queen to say 'here she is, our new
queen, finally. Then it is a good sign. But if they are biting and balling the cage then you have to wait a few more days to see
if they will accept her or not. This is the tricky part. Good luck!

This is all very good advice. I must confess that I couldn't tell if they were happy or balling the cage.
We shall see. Even making mistakes seems to be fun with bees. It will etch the lesson into my memory.
I'm going to check them on Saturday and let everyone know. They were queenless for several weeks, so they may be happy.
They do like to crawl at night! LOL. No stings though.

Why would you do it in the dark?

jrose1970 said:

Thanks for the quick reply. The hive is queenless and broodless. I think I goofed up a split earlier this year
(I was successful with another) and they were just going to live out their life and die I guess. I don't have but a few thousand bees in there now.
So, she won't have any competition for sure. I hate to borrow more bees or brood from another hive at this point because of the coming flow.
Thanks,

Click to expand...

Why is it queenless? Just few thousand bees. Sounds a bit worrying. Maybe it is queen- and broodless because the bees tried to make a new queen for themselves but for some reason they failed. There is a change that the hive has some sort of failed, small, unmated queen.

The best would be to check this possibility. Put a frame of young larvae, wait 5 days and see if they make queencells.
I would do a new nuc with 2-3 brood frames and one food frame for the new queen.

I would never recommend to put a new queen into a mysterious case, a hive which is unnormal.

Hey Michael,
I was going to get home super late and had to leave super early the next morning. I was thinking that it was more important to
get her installed than it was to wait for a time to do it in the daylight. Now I'm thinking it may have been a little hasty.
I wasn't sure how long she would last outside of a hive even in good temperatures.

She can last for a week or more with a drop of water every day. But you do what you have to do. It's not important to do it in the daylight, it's just less stings...

Hi Michael, I am off tomorrow. That would have been much better. Hi Juhani, that is a possibility too. I think the brood and eggs may have been too far advanced that I used in the split. I will remember to look very close for a small queen in the future. Thanks for that.
I am really learning a lot!

Michael Bush said:

She can last for a week or more with a drop of water every day. But you do what you have to do. It's not important to do it in the daylight, it's just less stings...

Click to expand...

Be carefull with the water, it can make the bees void and if they do, they die soon. Water is very seldom needed, and even then just tiny tiny drop. Often I don´t give them water at all, in room temperature they are all right for a week.
(But every day caged is too much , of course)

If you put the cage in a box with workers and refresh the workers every week you can keep them caged for months.