I routinely bank all my queens on the top bars of queenright hives as soon as
they arrive in the mail.  I usually order 75 queens and install them all myself,
so the job cannot be done in a day or two - usually takes about a week.  The
attendant bees always die or are killed within the first day, but the queen
survives nicely and is in great shape until I can get around to installing her.
I set the queen cages on their sides and invert a 1 1/2 inch high wooden tray
with hive dimensions over the cages and put the cover over that.  I pick the
queens out then as I need them.

Ted Fischer
Dexter, Michigan USA