Queen introduction

[Jon]

I used these ones this year

queen cage witrh fondant.jpg queen in cage with attendant.jpg

There is a short entrance and a long one. The queen can only get out the longer route as the short one has too narrow an entrance. The workers get in with her for a while before she gets out into the full colony.

I put the cage in for 48 hours before opening the plastic tab and it can take another 2 or 3 days before they have her out.

No matter what you do you will lose some queens on introduction which is why it's good to have spare ones.

[The Drone Ranger]

"The Introduction of Queen Bees" L E Snelgrove
pretty comprehensive guide

I prefer the water method where you give em a good soaking and bung them in the rear of the hive( just moving the cover board a little.) and done a night.
Wouldn't try that with a £50 queen on my say so though

[fatshark]

This thread seems to have moved on from the OP question ... I'll continue moving slightly further off topic. I've successfully used the Nicot cages sold by ModernBeekeeping for queen introduction this year. Notably these worked with a hive that was queenless and broodless for at least 2-3 weeks ... I pinched a frame with a small patch of emerging brood from another hive (no more than a hundred or so cells) and enclosed the queen, alone, in the cage over the patch of brood. Over the next few days the brood emerge and immediately accept the queen, who started to lay in the cells. The cap was then be removed from the cage, allowing the queen to move into the hive body in her own time. The half dozen or so introductions this year have all been done in the same way - all mated queens - without a problem.

The sealing caps seem to disappear after a single use only, but can readily be replaced with a small square of silver foil and a strip of duct tape!

--
fatshark

[Jon]

I tried one of those twice last year. The first time the introduction was successful and the second time the bees tunnelled in and killed the queen. It should work ok but if there are any gaps around the edge the bees can get in too quickly. I can't honestly say if it is better or worse than any other method of introduction as I only tried it a couple of times.