Getting rid of the attendants.

[planbee]

Last Friday, I picked up a queen from Mike in Brockworth.

She was supplied in a nice little flat plastic cage, together with eight attendants.

There were two exit gates in the cage, one worker sized, and the other was queen sized, both sealed with candy.

"Green number 49" is now in a nucleus, and doing her job.

At least, I think she is, for the first 24 hours after I placed the cage in there, nothing seemed to move, except the bees taking the syrup that I supplied - nothing travelling inbound, or outbound.

Today, all action stuff!

Bees queuing to get in and out of the drastically reduced nuc entrance, 2 bee widths.

They looked like they could do with a "Stop/Go" board to control them.

Also, they appeared to be "my" ladies, and they were flying over the field, not to and from the adjacent hive, so they are not robbers.

I managed to get the attendants to come out before I put the cage in the nuc, but it took ages - they didn't want to leave HM, I guess.

Is there an easy way to persuade them to come out, or what should I have done, that I didn't?

John

 

[Poly Hive]

I take the cage into the bathroom usually and undo it with the door and window shut. Smallest room aye?

I open the cage and get all the bees and queen out. I clip and mark her if required and pop her into the cage loading tube. Then I blow her gently into the cage again, pop in the stopper and she is ready to go into her colony.

PH

 

[planbee]

I was in the van, surrounded by buckets, brushes, and other window cleaners "bits" !

Doesn't she flap away when you open the cage?

I'm quite happy to pop her into the hive with her wings unclipped, it was the fact that the other little b****rs wouldn't come out, to order!

John

 

[victor meldrew]

I take the cage into the bathroom usually and undo it with the door and window shut. Smallest room aye?

I open the cage and get all the bees and queen out. I clip and mark her if required and pop her into the cage loading tube. Then I blow her gently into the cage again, pop in the stopper and she is ready to go into her colony.

PH

Don't forget to (this is where the ladies get their own back)replace the toilet seat and lid .
An old (old in both cases),friend of mine released a queen plus attendants into his bathroom, they flew to the window as normal but the guy couldn't find the queen anywhere . 1/2 an hour later he went for a pee and lo and behold, there she was swimming around the bowl (I kid you not ). He retrieved her introduced her to the hive intended and all was well

John Wilkinson

 

[Poly Hive]

Good point John, and some of them have a pure death wish.

PH

 

[victor meldrew]

Good point John, and some of them have a pure death wish.

PH

I have a last years queen, who nearly always ends up on my hand during manipulations, earlier this year I did a split and during the course of the afternoon,she walked back to the original hive, She couldn't make it up to entrance height so I picked her up and placed her on the alighting board from where she marched back into the hive as large as life .

John Wilkinson

 

[mikethebee]

HI If you had asked I would of explained you use a plain plastic bag,
Open the cage allowing all the bees out into the bag! Gently pick the queen up and pop her back in the cage alone.
All the best mike

 

[planbee]

Thanks Mike!

It never occurred to ask on Friday, my mind hadn't got that far, and I was chatting to you and your wife, about the wedding.

Hope you had a good day, by the way, and thanks again for tip, I'll try it next time.

John

 

[VEG]

This is the way the chap I bought my nucs off does it with the plastic bag.

 

[Brian Bush]

I always use the car. It was alittle worrying the second time when the quenn exited too quickly and decided to investigate the heater vent. Do you turn it on and blast her out?? My colleague and I sat there discussing our option for several minutes and she just walked up the windscreen on her own. Picked her up and put her int the release cage. Job Done.

I will try the plastic bag in future!!