Mike Palmers queenlessness test question...

If memory srves me, according to mike, it only takes a short time, not days.
This has also been my experience.

Sometines, I've intro'd queens only minutes after pinching the old queen, and have had no problems.

NOTE:
These were actively laying queens, not ones htat had been caged unable to lay for a day or two.

Thanks, that's what I thought. I tried it on all 3 hives from the split I did earlier. On 2 of the hives a couple bees were trying to sting the screen on the cage but there was the parade that Palmer spoke of. On the 3rd, parade and they just covered the cage. I will try again later this afternoon or maybe tomorrow morning. I don't want to lose any queens. I was unable to find the queen when I split, there was an enormous amount of bees covering all of the frames ! Normally I don't have any problem finding them.

A cpl of hours.