[BeeCurious]

I'm going to receive some queens in California Mini Queencages and some queenless packages. I need to hold one or two packages for others to pick up in a day or two. For the packages I planned to put jars of syrup on them, inverted over the screen.

For the queens I have the following ideas:

#1. leave them in the shipping box with nurse bees and a tiny bit of syrup

#2. I don't like the idea of putting the queen cage in the package because I hate to see them slammed to the ground to remove the syrup cans BUT I could remove the syrup cans and hang the cage inside the package so the bees could get used to their queen.

#3. I thought of placing the queencages face down against the screen of the package but I'm not sure that the bees will be able to feed the queen through the two screens.

What would you do?

 

[Beeslave]

The queens will be ok for a few days in the shipping box with the nurse bees on the outside of the cages. Keep moisture and sugar in there for them. The packages will be ok if they are left in a cool dark place and there is syrup in the cans for them. Make sure the people that get these don't realese the queens right away with the packages. The queen cage will need to be left corked for a few days after shaking them in so the workers can get used to her.

BTW-When packages arrive the people who ordered them need to be available to get them picked up ASAP. That's part of the responsibility of ordering packages. The longer they sit in the cage the worse it is!