[kathygibson]

Hi there. I had to replace the queen in my 3# package less than a week after installing as the bees killed the original queen. I installed a new queen last Thursday. Poked a hole in the candy end, hung the cage between bars 5 & 6 with candy end up. Today when I checked on her, there was not one bee on her cage, she was still in it...the 4 attendants appeared to be dead. I took her down, sprayed the cage with 1:1 sugar water mixed with a little HbH and placed it on the floor of the hive under the cluster of bees. Not sure what else to do at this point.

1)try another direct release in a day or so

2) order yet another queen (this time remove all the attendants before putting in the hive)

I've checked all the comb...no eggs, no larvae. I'm afraid if I don't get a laying queen in there soon there were be no bees alive in a few weeks.

Thoughts?

 

[Wyldbee]

I would let her out and keep my fingers crossed.

 

[cheesegenie]

I was told to take the attendants outs when you add the queen cage to the hive, to avoid extra fighting. Anybody do that?

 

[beez2010]

I have never heard of removing the attendants while leaving the queen in the cage. Seems like it would be difficult to do without risking injury to the queen.

Kathy, the queen will likely die if you don't release her. I would release her ASAP, and like someone already said--cross your fingers.

Seems very odd that there were no bees on the cage. Are you sure the queen isn't already dead?

Good luck to you!

Chris

www.thewarrestore.com

 

[11x]

pick the queen cage up and move it through the cluster of bees and see how thay react. if thay get on the cage nice and easy and dont seem to be trying to "ball" her than i would go ahead and release her. i had the same thing happen to me last week in a lang hive. i hung her between frames and 2 days later not one bee on the cage, as soon as i moved her to the cluster thay started feeding her through the cage so i released her into the cluster. 3 days later i got lots of eggs and a happy hive.