Tips and Tricks to Care for Your Queens

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From the BEEginning:

To raise a good queen, you need to have a healthy hive to start. That means having a lot of bees to serve the queen, clean frames for her to work on, and she should stay in a nucleus’s or nuke till she is fully mature and has a lot of sealed brood before she can be used in a regular hive and lead the colony in any production purposes. In other words, she needs some experience before she can take on a full kingdom.

When your queens arrives:

  • When your queen(s) arrive, open the shipping box as soon as you are able.

  • The boxes are meant to be temporary not long term housing, so don’t leave them in the shipping box. Provide your queens with the castle they deserve. The best practice is to place them in their new kingdom, their hive, right away.

  • Make sure to check the water sponge. If it’s hot, mist some water over the bees. If you need to work in the yard, keep the box OPEN and in the shade.

  • For best results, feed your colony right away after placing the queen among her new subjects.

  • Postpone medication.

  • Finally, give her royal highness a chance to establish herself in the realm. Meaning, hold off on checking the colonies for a week.

In Case of Delay in using your Queens:

  • Make a temporary “Queen Bank” by placing orange JZs-BZs bars (provided in shipping package) with the queen inside, in a QUEEN-LESS hive between two brood frames.