[Robbin]

My queens shipped overnight, will arrive tomorrow. It's rainy tomorrow, wednesday is better, thursday and friday better still. Warmer, upper 70s light wind. Sunny thursday and partly cloudy Friday but the high near 80. Any reason I can't wait till thursday or friday to install them, and what do I need to do if I decide to wait. I've studied how to bank queens and even have a nuc sat aside for that purpose. But I don't know if that is required for this short a period of time. Thursday is perfect, except my son is off Friday and would be there to help me.
Thou I think I'm going to go thursday with the sunny day and see if he can help me. I've got 5 queens, for 3 splits and a hive that swarmed and the queen didn't come back from the mating flight and a queen missing from a nuc. I've introduced queens before, but never had to wait to install them.
Thanks in advance for the advice.

 

[psfred]

Put a drop of water on the screen and keep them dark and they should be fine, especially if there are some attendants in there with the queen as there should be. They will keep her fed for quite a while - I had one poor queen last year who had to wait two days to get installed due to bad weather, then had the split up and abscond, leaving her all alone in the hive for a least a day, then I had to find a way to get her into a hive that took a couple days.

She did fine, the hive is booming this year (not at my house, alas). They are pretty sturdy. A couple days won't hurt them at all, just keep them in the house where it's warm.

Peter

 

[sterling]

I was told by the queen breeder I just got a couple queens from the other day to put a little drop of water on the cage every day and put them in a teeshirt draw to keep them for a couple days.

 

[bison]

I'd only add to be careful if you have any ants in your home as they'll be attracted to the sugar plug and can kill your queen. I left a caged queen on my kitchen counter last year and in the morning it was covered with ants. The queen died later that day.