Hello,
A few years back I read on the list, I believe it was post by Allen, about
banking queens above a queen excluder in a queenright colony.  (Aaron, I
would also be interested in hearing why you were told this was bad.)    Up
until then it never occurred to me that you could do this.  I thought only a
queenless set up would work, so that is what I used.  Since then I have set
up banks on queenright colonies and never had a problem.  I try not to keep
them banked for longer than two weeks, but last year I lost count and left
one for probably closer to a month.  She was fine.

This year, as I previously mentioned, I had high winter losses.  When the
queens arrived I had more than I really needed so banking was essential.
For no particular reason, other than convenience, I chose a colony that was
that was started from a package a few weeks earlier for the bank.  It worked
fine as all queens were successfully stored.  A few interesting things
happened along the way.  First I made a very stupid mistake.  It was the end
of the day when I set up the bank I wasn't thinking when I placed the caged
queens above the excluder.  I use an excluder with an Imire Shim above it
for added space around the cages.  About two days later while as I lay bed I
remembered I did not block the candy side of the cage.  I envisioned a
number of new queens being released and then killed.  The next morning I
checked and found very little activity around the sugar.  Maybe if this was
a strong colony rather than a package the outcome would have been different.


There were some other oddities that occurred.  When I requeen colonies,
unless the colony has a real problem, i.e. aggressive, I don't like to kill
the queen.  I guess I am getting soft, but I just have a problem killing
queens.  I have a few ways around this.  I either pull the old queen and a
frame or two and start a nuc, or I set up a two queen colony and eventually
let the bees decide.  Invariably it runs about +80% that the new queen is
ultimately chosen.  If I start the nuc using the old queen and the new queen
is not accepted I still have a back up.  This year I just had too many
queens so I couldn't do this.  I took a few of the old queens and put them
in cages and added them to the bank along with the other queens that were
already there.  A few days later I checked to find them dead yet the other
queens were still being cared for.  I am sure someone will have an
explanation as to why they were not cared for.  Interestingly though, a few
years ago while requeening a colony I placed the old queen in a cage (not
really knowing what I was going to do with her but I still have that problem
with killing queens) without attendants.  I placed the cage on the ground in
the shade some distance away from the colony and promptly forgot about her
as I continued my work.  A few days later I was walking around the area and
noticed a small cluster of bees on the ground.  Sure enough it was the
queen, alive and well, being attended out in the open.  I then checked the
colony she came from to find the new queen had been released and was already
doing her job.

I know this is getting long winded but I have one more oddity.  While
handling some of the old queens one got away from me when I was caging her.
I was standing over the colony that I was going to set up as the queen bank.
I dropped her on the inner cover.  She made a mad dash through the cover
hole and went right down into the colony.  I thought, oh well she is done.
A few days later I checked and to my surprise found her laying eggs on a
frame.  Sure enough four frames over I found the original queen also laying,
happy as she could be.

All this just proves to me, once again, the bees don't read the books and
just maybe in another 40 years I will have learned enough to say I know a
little about them.

Take care,
Ron Bogansky
Kutztown, (eastern) PA, USA




+