What Does the Novice Beekeeper Need to Know?

Number 3b

"Growing a Package into a Nuc"

"And Why"

Your Packages Has Settled! It is 3-5 days after you have installed your package in a Nuc box or a Hive body. You have been feeding the package of bees. You have restricted them from leaving their new home box.

Now it is time to make sure the queen was released from the queen cage. I am assuming you removed the cork from the candy end of the queen cage and hung it candy opening up between two frames with the screen side available so the workers could feed the queen during the familiarization period (3-5 days).

I use syrup spray to calm the bees because they won't have much honey put up to engorge and calm themselves. Most of their honey production will go into wax making to draw new comb if that is necessary. If you were lucky enough to start with some drawn comb then the bees might have put up some honey.

I gently open the outer telescoping cover and remove the inner cover. Setting them aside and immediately give the bees on the top bars a good blast of syrup spray. Now pull a frame which is 2 frames left or right of where you "hung" the queen cage.

Next remove the frame on one side of the queen cage. OBSERVE: has the queen been released from the queen cage. Look closely, there may be worker bees in the cage. Do not pick up the queen cage until you know if the queen was released. Is the candy end of the queen cage eaten through? You don't want to pick the queen cage up and allow the queen to jump out into the grass.

If the candy appears to be eaten through, place your finger over the hole and lift the cage up to where you can clearly see which type of bees are in the cage. You determine the queen was released. Good, you can just dump the worker bees out of the cage and remove it from the hive.

If the queen is still inside the cage, you can release her into the hive. THIS IS TRICKY! On a wooden/screen sided cage, I use my hive tool, slipping it under the screen and ripping the screen off the cage. I do this while holding the cage in the slot where I removed the 2 frames. I hold the cage as I open it so that as the queen escapes, she goes down between the frames. If I hold up the cage where I can see what I am doing the queen will have an opportunity to pump out into the grass. Hold the cage in the "crack" for a few minutes to ensure the queen is out. Maybe thumping the cage a few times will encourage the queen to escape. Once you are sure the queen is out, remove the cage and replace the frames. Close up the hive. The more days the queen stays in the cage the fewer days she is laying eggs. This ends your inspection.

With all the plastic queen cages you need to figure out how to open the cage safely and not injure or lose the queen. Maybe you are just safer letting the bees eat the candy and release her.

If you ascertain that the queen was released from the cage, you can inspect the colony frame by frame until you find the queen. You can see between the top bars that the bees are only on three or four frames. The queen will generally be in the middle of the cluster looking down into the hive. Start on one side away from the cluster. Remove the first frame which will have few bees on it and set it aside. Now work your way across until you find the queen.

If you started your package with less than 5 frames you can boost it to 4-5 frames at this time. Feeding the package syrup water will expedite comb building.

You are looking to see that comb is being drawn, honey is being put up, and then "whala!" there is the queen. Is she laying eggs? Is she structurally healthy? Frequently queens will be injured during capture and caging. Antennae, wings and legs get broken. The queen may be healthy enough to lay eggs but the bees will supersede and kill her fairly quickly. If she is laying eggs, you can grow a new queen. If she is not laying eggs, you will either want to order a new queen or combine the package with another hive of bees.

If you combine the bees with another colony, you can split that colony once they are healthy enough to grow a new queen. This way your queenless package won't abscond and go looking for a queen. Remember you package was not a colony. It was a bunch of random bees shaken out of a hive and a strange queen introduced at the time of shipping. Having not settled around the new queen, they might just fly home.