Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
as expensive as a queen. The tape will make sure your queen stays where she should. If
there isn't a wire or tab, and often there isn't one that works for installing in a pack-
age, use rubber bands.
(6) Drawn comb in the frames when installing the queen in the upper box of two boxes.
The queen's cage should be placed between frames in the top box, with the screen fa-
cing down, and the cage actually resting on the lips of the bottom bars. Gently squeeze
the two frames together so the queen cage becomes just a bit embedded in the wax comb
on each side. This will securely hold the cage in place until she is released.
(7) Place the feeder pail over the hole in the inner cover. You'll need two medium supers
to enclose the pail.
Carefully lower the frames you removed into the bottom box. Let them slowly sink
as the bees on the bottom are gently moved aside to make room for the frames. Here's
where queen introduction to the package can go in two directions. In the photos you'll
see you can place the queen in her cage in the bottom box, held between two frames so
the bees have easy access to her. She can also be placed in the box directly above the
bottom box, again held in place. Be sure you don't place her in the center, in case your
feeder pail leaks. The flood would drown her.
Three criteria for inserting a queen cage are: easy access to the queen cage by the
hive bees, being securely held, and out of the way of the feeder (if it leaks). Even the
best of queens, however, in the best of cages, introduced the best way possible by the
best bee-keeper there is, has about an even chance of being accepted. This acceptance
rate goes up if you are using local or survivor queens, or queens you have raised your-
self, or queens the colony has raised, or you bought a nuc and the queen was already
accepted. With new packages be prepared for queen loss and replacement.
Mostly this has to do with the miticides queen producers use to control varroa. They
are death on queens and drones, and what you get is the chemical fallout from their
