# General beekeeping > Queen raising >  How long to keep queen in cage?

## Blackcavebees

Been having great fun lately with Jon and the guys at the Belfast Queen rearing group. Monday night caged two lovely AMM queens from my mating nucs. Thunder, lightning, heavy rain yesterday. Tried to make up nucs this morning and got totally pasted, even stung on fingers through nirilite over leather gauntlets and feeling like the cartoon character with the throbbing fingers.  Chased out of the apiary.
Weather here is very close, and looks like more of the same tomorrow.

Q is how long can my queens stay in the cage out of the hive without detriment? One has 2 attendants, one has one attendant, both have candy and drops of water morning and evening. Currently sitting in a shady corner of the living room, no CH.

Advice appreciated.

----------


## Jon

Put in another couple of attendants meanwhile.
Your queen will not last long after the last attendant dies.
You can collect a few in a jar at the entrance of a hive or taken from an apidea. Insert them one by one into the cage.
Spray them with water if you have difficulty picking them up.
Young bees are better if you can get them.
It is giving rain for the rest of today and all day tomorrow.

It is best to make up the nucs before you take the queens out of the apideas!

----------


## Blackcavebees

Break in the rain at 11pm tonight, out with torch, got some from supers, 2 extra into each and one flying round living room, wife not amused :-) will have another go tomorrow at the nucs, hopefully no thunder. Fingers still throbing though.

----------


## Blackcavebees

Now that's the usual weather we're used to. Out at out-apiary by 8am, nucs made up just before the down pour started again.  Queens added at lunchtime, everything "looks" and sounds ok. What's the plan? Just leave them for a week or so? Or open in couple of days to make sure queen is out of cages? They have 1 full frame stores and brood frames have honey arch

----------


## Jon

Are the plastic tabs open yet?
If not check in 24 hours and if the bees seem reasonably calm with the cage,open the tab.
Check again 2 days later as the fondant sometimes goes hard and the queen will still be in the cage.
If so, carefully poke a small hole in the fondant not big enough for the queen to get out.
Replace the cage and she should be out shortly.
When you are working with the cage, be careful not to accidentally pop off the plastic releasing the queen as she might fly off.

----------


## Ruary

don't forget to check within a week for Queen cells.

As the queen is only coming into lay she will not be laying a full quota and the workers might think she is going off lay and supersede her.

 Been there done that so I read the book.

----------


## Jon

Taking queens too early from Apideas can also lead to rejection or early supersedure.
The Rhodes and Denny paper I mentioned before states that 28-35 days from emergence is optimal before removing a queen for introduction.
I have been urging group members to leave the queens to lay in the apideas for at least two weeks if possible, at a minimum 10 days until the first brood is sealed.
Action is needed within 3 weeks as the apidea population will triple at that point when the first brood hatches.
I find that if a queen spends several days in the introduction cage there will invariably be sealed queen cells in the box and the queen rarely tears these down when she gets out of the cage.
The advice to check for queen cells a few days after the queen is out of the cage is canny enough.

----------


## Blackcavebees

These queens removed 25 days after emergence. Quickly mated due to good weather, laying after 11 days. Maybe leave next batch a tad longer to be sure.

----------


## beejazz

Well, well, I live and learn!  That explains it then!  So maybe my little grafted queen is good, and not a scrubbish queen the bees are trying to supercede.   I left her long enough in the apidea, 6 weeks at least, maybe she was too long in the cage, or not enough space to lay in the nuc. I removed the capped cells from the nuc a few days ago.  If the bees persist in making cells should I suppose she's no good?

----------


## Jon

Sometimes they settle down and stop trying to supersede a new queen after a few weeks.
It is possible she has a genuine problem in which case the bees will make cells as fast as you remove them.
Nosema and virus, especially DWV, have also been linked to early supersedure of queens.

Since I started leaving queens longer in the apideas I hardly see any early supersedure.

I had a genuine supersedure case a couple of weeks ago with a queen in her 4th season.
I came across the two queens in the box and the daughter was laying so I removed the old queen to a nuc where she is still laying.
Her nuc will attempt to supersede her again shortly.

----------


## beejazz

I have a 2011 queen, no signs of swarming this year, although I demarreed twice when attempting grafting on that hive.  It is the first hive to kick out their drones, I would be tempted to leave the queen to see if the bees try to supercede her next year, or this autumn? except for the hive is the nastiest/stickiest hive to deal with.  I'm a bit scared of it, have to say!  So will requeen soon.  I have a lovely new mated queen ready in an apidea, and she's big!  After reading Ruary and Jon's comments I will let her lay for 3 weeks? and then think about re-queening, probably into a nuc first , just to be on the safe side.

----------


## Jon

> think about re-queening, probably into a nuc first , just to be on the safe side.


It makes sense to start up a nuc as you have a better percentage chance of queen acceptance.
You can then build up the nuc and requeen a colony after removing its queen and combining via newspaper.

----------


## beejazz

Yes that's the plan.  Allow the queen to lay in the apidea for a couple of weeks more, then build up the queen introduction nuc, and unite after the apiguard is finished.  That way there will be less bees to deal with when looking through the hive for the queen.

----------


## The Drone Ranger

What are the chances that a daughter queen (who's mother produced a bad tempered hive) can produce a hive of good tempered bees ?
Could the good honey gathering and brood laying plus low swarming tendency be worth giving it a try?

----------


## prakel

> What are the chances that a daughter queen (who's mother produced a bad tempered hive) can produce a hive of good tempered bees ?
> Could the good honey gathering and brood laying plus low swarming tendency be worth giving it a try?


I'd say the chances are quite good actually but you've got to be pretty ruthless regards culling the ones which don't measure up temper wise. I've got a couple of real gentle colonies which are headed by daughters of a notoriously bad lot and it's not the first time this has happened. If we go down the road of raising local mongrels from what we already have there may not be any other option but to give it a go. But it can seem like a long road to walk at times and the temptation to buy in an already improved queen for a couple of years respite becomes very tempting.

----------


## The Drone Ranger

Hi Prakel
That's interesting you have been able to do this
From what I have read good temper is relatively easy to fix in a strain of bees 
Hygienic behaviour the most difficult 
Honey gathering surplus and low swarming somewhere in the middle
It seems a shame to lose some good genetics if there is a chance of improving that strain by breeding in better temper

----------


## prakel

> From what I have read good temper is relatively easy to fix in a strain of bees


I've heard that too  :Smile: 

I won't derail this thread as it's a good 'ne but I will say that the queens I referred to are genuinely 'shirt sleeve' bees whereas their mother was a real bruiser. I didn't refer to her colony as notorious for no reason. In the end the only way I could get control (due to the very public location of the colony) without mass slaughter was to pay a 5am visit with a smoker full of heavy paper soaked in a mixture of saltpetre -well no, actually it was potassium nitrate. You'll understand the distinction if you try to purchase a small quantity online; 'saltpeter' is sold to witches for use in spells or some such thing and commands a premium price!!! Anyway that was drastic action in response to a living nightmare.

----------


## The Drone Ranger

I've mentioned the dreaded No10 elsewhere 
That hive was allowed to get very big gathering honey
I paid the price splitting it up and requeening the Nucs

----------


## prakel

> I've mentioned the dreaded No10 elsewhere 
> That hive was allowed to go rampant while gathering honey
> I paid the price splitting it up and requeening the Nucs
> I didn't keep the queen they were good honey getters but that was their *only* good point


Similar, although gassing allowed removal of the queen and the division into nucs without _paying the price_ but they were then left to raise their own queens on the basis that they often do come good. 

I can of course see how this approach wouldn't suit a lot of people for all sorts of reasons, nor am I advising anyone else to start burning nitrates...

----------


## Blackcavebees

I've got a colony like that! Great for honey gathering but you just can't work with them. Picked 54 stings out of my suit the other week after a partial inspection, smoke does little to help, was wondering about tear gas? What's the story with nitrates?

They are one of the reasons I joined Jon's queen rearing group. I have one colony of blacks hardly bother when i go through them, so its requeening the rest for a quieter life

----------


## prakel

> I've got a colony like that! Great for honey gathering but you just can't work with them. Picked 54 stings out of my suit the other week after a partial inspection, smoke does little to help, was wondering about tear gas? What's the story with nitrates?
> 
> They are one of the reasons I joined Jon's queen rearing group. I have one colony of blacks hardly bother when i go through them, so its requeening the rest for a quieter life


Hi Blackcavebees, well.... as you started this thread I'll come back to 'saltpetre' subjugation later today (it may not be a short post) once I've finished with the bees. A few people have recommended the technique on other forums but tell-tale signs sometimes lead me to question whether they've actually put their ideas into practice themselves. It's a simple enough subject but there are a lot of 'little' specifics to get right.

----------


## Jon

It's about playing with percentages.
If you breed from a very good queen and her daughters cross mainly with drones from the same race you may get the odd bad one but the vast majority will have the characteristics of the chosen breeder queen.

If you breed from a mongrel queen mating with a mixture of drones you will get some acceptable results but many unacceptable ones.

As I have said many times before, a big problem is hybrisation between distinct sub species each of which should be gentle in itself - producing very aggressive crosses. See Ruttner for detail.
A gene pool left to settle down without constant introduction of new material can be greatly improved by selection and culling of colonies. That is the basis of what Roger Patterson is trying to do with his group in West Sussex where the background bee population includes a mixture of everything.
If you live somewhere where local beekeepers bring in queens from different sub species every year, bee improvement is going to be an uphill battle.

----------


## The Drone Ranger

> Q is how long can my queens stay in the cage out of the hive without detriment? One has 2 attendants, one has one attendant, both have candy and drops of water morning and evening. Currently sitting in a shady corner of the living room, no CH.
> 
> Advice appreciated.


I usually keep them in the cage in a  small cardboard box (around 6") so they are in the dark 
I made queen introduction push in cages that cover about a quarter of a brood frame so they have lots of room when introduced
Don't know if that's necessary but they seem to be always accepted

Brother Adam wrote a lot about reciprocal crosses and different outcomes
Anyone watching the BBC last night Bill Turnbull on bees would have seen a commercial outfit in Perthshire
They were loading 1.5K packages of imported bees into all their hundreds of hives (they looked like light Italians)
Besides having the cheek to run a" _sponsor a hive program_ "they are putting those bees all over the place
Government pays (sorry off topic rant)

----------


## prakel

> It's about playing with percentages......
> 
> ....A gene pool left to settle down without constant introduction of new material can be greatly improved by selection and culling of colonies. That is the basis of what Roger Patterson is trying to do with his group in West Sussex where the background bee population includes a mixture of everything.
> If you live somewhere where local beekeepers bring in queens from different sub species every year, bee improvement is going to be an uphill battle.


Very true words. The real results become apparent in years rather than months, years because it tends to take a couple of years for new beekeepers to; get bored and give up, loose their bought in queen and allow the bees to go down the road of rearing their own; settle on a preferred make of bee and continue buying in queens of that one variety thus adding some limited stability to the drone population or to wise up and start trying to breed their own locally (ideally within a group of likeminded people such as the group which Jon and Blackcavebees are members of.

I don't think that large scale imports to an area necessarily result in a worse case scenario IF you're working with a mongrel to start with although it's of course a different matter all together if you're trying to rear a pure race/Buckfast type bee. It's the 'collector' mentality of having one of each race that really seems to create issues, that constant swapping and changing. Personally, in my own location I'd love to see one of the big guys flood the area with several hundred carnica or buckfast colonies.... but most of us in the South of England as well as probably all urban beekeepers are going to be working with mixers (no matter how much we'd like to work with one type of bee) unless we buy into reliance on outside breeders to keep renewing our queens but that then brings us back to one aspect of 'how long to keep queens in cages'. I've read somewhere that at least one very large scale breeder believes that a large percentage of the queens he sends out are lost either on introduction or shortly afterwards simply due to people rushing the queen into action rather than making the colony wait.

edit: I wrote this post before seeing DroneRangers previous comments on releasing Italian bees into what I suppose is an amm area. I am of course referring to my own location which like Roger Patterson's has a bit of everything when I say that I'd actually welcome a mass import of well bred bees of a 'type'.

----------


## Jon

The biggest problem with queen introduction is beekeepers convinced a hive is queenless when there is a virgin in it.
Many people who ask for queens clearly have little understanding about queen mating times and bee life cycle.
The mantra about 'I think my hive is queenless' starts about a week after losing a swarm.
Some people even get annoyed when you wont sell tham a queen which you know is going to be cannon fodder.

With queen introduction, you have to use your judgement. If the bees are aggressive towards the cage, it should not be opened yet irrespective of the time it has spent in the hive.

----------


## The Drone Ranger

Hi prakel
I think in this area it's mainly AMM(ish), Carniolan and crosses between the two I'll post some plots on another thread(so I mess this one up less)
Italian blood shows up through Buckfast (I think)mainly because Italian bees are not a popular choice
That's the strange thing about those package bees seen on Horizon, if they are NZ Italian they won't do well (lovely bees though they may be)
Following on Jon's point ,introduction via a big push in cage gives her a chance to move around,get some hatching bees with her and do a spot of laying

----------


## prakel

> That's the strange thing about those package bees seen on Horizon, if they are NZ Italian they won't do well (lovely bees though they may be)


No, they didn't even do very well on Portland, mind I'm not sure that we saw the sun through the mist at all that year!




> Following on Jon's point ,introduction via a big push in cage gives her a chance to move around,get some hatching bees with her and do a spot of laying


Yeah, a good type of cage. In the past I've had good results with Manley cages on the similar (but smaller) principle. As an aside, I was rereading Honey Farming the other week and for the first time ever actually noted his overview on the development of this cage, I don't know how many times I'd missed the point previously but it would appear that the version which we now know as the Manley cage was actually developed by EWD Madoc. This, along with John Atkinson's assertion in 'Bee Breeding' that Manley adopted the closed end super frames from Madoc as well...

----------


## prakel

Stumbled across this video which shows a 'different' approach to introducing a caged queen. Takes a couple of minutes before it reaches the 'business end' of the video.

----------

