Queen ticking over

[grizzly]

With all the talk on Queen Rearing and buying in Queens, (this is where i show my inexperience), how long can you keep a queen in good health for without being in a colony.

Say for arguments sake you buy two queens as they are only available in a short window, one gets placed into a populated colony, and you keep the other in reserve for when you split or buy more, how long can you keep her ticking over for.

 

[Finman]

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Not many days. When you get a queen it is better to put them quickly to samlla colony which has some hundreds bees, or one frame.



.

 

[grizzly]

So she does need attendants pretty quickly then, whats the smallest nuc that can be made up in that instance, would two frames be ample.

Is the introduction process going to be the same as if it were a full colony ?

 

[Poly Hive]

I have kept one just in the traveling cage for three or four days.

You could make up a mini nuc and introduce her into that. she will be fine in there and it only takes a mug full of bees, preferably from a mix of hives note.

PH

 

[Finman]

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I have kept some queen in travelling gage and they will die during one week. First will die assistant bees and finally queen is very week.
In very small nuc queen lays and when cells are full, queen may leave the place.

If you have not bees for ordinary nuc, it is vain to bye extra queens.

 

[Bcrazy]

As an experiment one winter I placed that years queen into a Warnholtz with plenty of bees and it was part drawn comb.
I fed them with fondant and left alone all winter, they were well protected from rain and winds.

The beginning of March I had to move them into a 5 frame Nuc because the queen began laying quite heavily.

So it depends on what you consider the best way to keep a queen happy.

All the above replies are correct also.

Regards;

 

[mikeyspikey]

Isn't it amazing how many different answers there are. I will now admit to a horrific blunder and hope that Norton dos not see this post. We had six queens from him last year all in plastic cages with about a dozen attendant workers. We got most of them into hives within a couple of days but for various reasons one poor!!! queen was not put into the hive for three weeks. We did look after her!! by giving drops of water. She is now one of our best queens. You just never know... we are dealing with animals... unpredictable.