Dead Queen

[Bill Hansen]

I picked up my package from the club on Sunday and installed it. At the time of pick up and installation, the queen was alive. She never made it out of the cage. I now need a new queen. I've called around. Local suppliers won't have queens until about May 1. There is a California supplier who has a 2010 queen for $20 plus $25 or so for shipping. I'm hoping to avoid that.
My current thinking is to combine the new package with an existing hive and wait until a queen becomes available locally when I can split the hive again. Any opinions? Any other options?

[ski]

Bill,
An option would be to put a frame of brood with eggs in the package hive and let them raise their own queen. Drones are available now so 16 days plus from now should provide that many more mature drones. But I have not played around that much with packages.
Ken

[Bill Hansen]

That's a great thought! Let me see what's brewing in the hives I have access to.

[mike91553]

Another option would be give the package hive two or three frames of brood with the queen and let the strong hive make a new queen. A stronger hive may raise a better queen or so I have heard. Not sure which is best as I have let them raise the new queen at the old location or the new location with splits.

[Jacobs]

I don't think I would want to risk my queen by putting her in the package hive unless you were going to do something like a newspaper combination so that the different bees could get used to each other slowly. I think I would go with the frame of eggs and larvae idea that Ski suggested.

[Wally]

I would go with the frame of eggs, but leave the bees on it. There will be a little fighting at first, but they will settle in shortly. The extra bees on the frame will give the package a boost.

[Kurt Bower]

Have Rob contact the package suppliers.
I believe that they have responsibility for the queens health and death since she never made it out of the cage.

[Jacobs]

Kurt,

I'll contact the apiary today, but I don't think we will get much help. All queens were alive when the packages were picked up at the Ag Center. We had each beekeeper verify that. We instructed people not to keep going into the installed package but to remove the candied end cork, poke a small hole through the candy, place the cage with screen accessible to the workers, and leave the hive alone for about 7 days. I'll be checking the bee packages at the Ag Center after about 61/2 days (Saturday).

The apiary's instructions were a little different in that they differentiate between installing a package on drawn comb and new equipment. On drawn comb, they suggest waiting a minimum of 3 days before checking on the package and on new equipment, leaving the cork in for 3 days of feeding, then remove the cork over the candy and feed for 5 days. We did not make this suggestion.

I think when they hear that bee keepers were installing packages and then going right back in to check on the bees, they will want to be paid for the replacement queens and shipping, if they have them. The weather had been bad in the week before we got there and one of their mating yards had been disturbed so they did not have a surplus of queens to sell to anyone when we picked up the packages.

[Bill Hansen]

Just to be clear, the installation was into a hive that had 10 frames of completely drawn comb.
For now, I am planning on following Guard Bees' last suggestion and swapping out a frame with newly laid eggs and letting the bees sort it out.

[Bill Hansen]

I went in with my buddy Doug and looked through three of his strongest hives for a frame with new eggs. All of his queens had chimneyed with brood in the brood boxes as well as in the supers. We found the queen and, avoiding the frame she was on, picked a brood frame and a medium with very young larva as well as some young ready to hatch.
I replaced a brood and medium super frame in the new hive. The packaged bees had drifted to port in both the brood box and the super, so I placed the new frames a little to starboard, hoping they would accomodate more easily. (I had some loose bees in the nuke box I carried the frames over with, so I just dumped them on top and wished them luck.)
So, now I wait. Any more advice?

[Jacobs]

You can give it about 4 full days and then look for queen cells. You should see them by then. If you have other bee hives around (and maybe even if you don't), you may want to use blue or green painters tape (the kind that you can pull off without leaving glue on the hive or pulling up paint) and put it on the front of the hive in wonky patterns. This may help the queen recognize and get back to the right hive when she orients and goes up for her mating flight. The link below is to Michael Bush's bee math. It will give you an excellent idea about what you should be seeing when.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm

[Kurt Bower]

Still not convinced that the Apiary does not have some responsibility. What else could Bill have possibly done differently to keep the queen alive? I do not think checking her after 3 days killed her.
I have obviously done my fair share of queen installations and have only had 1 die in the cage that I can remember and that was due to excessive paint marking. I beleive that they should be contacted. 1 queen out of 100 should not be looked on as a conspiracy by the supplier.

[Jacobs]

Kurt,

I did contact the apiary. We signed that we received the packages with live queens and in good shape. We verified that the people receiving the packages got them with live queens and in good shape. You don't know and I don't know what people are doing in the days after receipt regarding installation and "inspections." I'm not saying anyone did anything wrong, but having received this agricultural product in good shape, the risk is on the purchaser.

The apiary does have a history from which they determined expected failure rates and provides 2 queens per 100 packages to us for unexplained failures. I have one coming for someone who waited 4 days before checking the queen and has no alternative (such as access to eggs and larvae). I will have access to 1 more.

One of the draw backs of getting early packages from the supplier is the potential for the difficulty replacing those queens that do fail or are harmed in installation mishaps. Perhaps in the future we should let all club members do their own bee purchasing through the available local sellers.

If you know if a source of queens that are NOW available, let us know on this forum board and you can e mail me with the information as well.

[Bill Hansen]

Guys,

Just to be clear. I'm taking full responsibility for the dead queen. It might be good to get a clear policy for the future about packages and extra queens, but I'm not asking the club to do anything other than give me advice.

And a thought. If my effort to requeen by installing frames from a strong local colony works, we'll have a new option that will let us upgrade packages from Georgia with queens from local eggs. This may work out in the long run for the best as far as I'm concerned.

[Jacobs]

Bill, I appreciate your understanding the risks, your attitude about the situation, and your efforts to find a solution.


The policy discussion swirling around you may be more appropriate elsewhere, but folks must be aware that there are risks in getting bees and that neither an apiary or the club can accept open ended responsibility once the packages are delivered in good shape. Some queens will fail for unknown reasons and there are many things we can do that lessen or increase the chance of queen acceptance and queen health. That is one of the reasons requeening/introducing queens is part of the beginners course. If there were a foolproof method of package handling & transportation, queen introduction & package installation, and if that method could be recorded for each and every package installation done, then perhaps the apiary would guarantee queen viability from pick up through release.

Again, the paragraph above is not meant to be and should not be taken as a reflection on your actions in installing the package, but this line of posts has taken the course that leads to these issues being clarified.

[Kurt Bower]

Rob:

But providing bees for the club is one of the best parts of being president!
You are correct in saying that we have no real understanding about the handling etc... after delivery to the buyers. And the club should not bear any responsibility.
As you indicated the producer did acknowledge the attrition rate of 2 queens per hundred which I think is acceptable.
thanks for the hard work!

Kurt

[Doug Shaw]

Truth be told it was my fault I convinced Bill to try a different method of installing the queen cage using bottom loading-on-a-stick method that I had seen in the Bee Culture magazine. Set the cage with the screen facing up. Never will do that again.

[Bill Hansen]

Things have turned out well on my attempt at requeening so far. I know the bees aren't into it that far, but look to be on schedule.

http://sufficient-for-our-need.blogspot ... label/bees