> Bees can live very comfortably, AND A LOT LONGER, when kept at LOW
> temperatures, like 45°-50° and in the DARK, just like a November day.
> Given 1-2 small drops of water each day, the attendants will dissolve
> a bit of cage candy and FEED the queen.

I used to believe that, and many do, but I had some bad experiences when
holding queens in shipping boxes of 100 queens each over weekends and until
they were all used up.  At that time, I stored them in a cool place in the
dark, but, within a week, the queens and attendants were always looking poor
and I had losses.

After one particuarly bad loss, I asked other commercial beekeepers what was
wrong, and I learned that queens with attendants do best when kept at room
temperature and in the light, but out of direct sun.  That surprised me,
since bees on comb are calmest when kept cooler than room temp, but since I
learned that, I have stored thousands of queens and had no further problems,
and very low mortality in storage (1%?).

Ideally, queens should not be stored, but in the real world, it happens.  We
often held queens up to ten days and could not detect any ill effects.  One
time, I held some for about two months, however, and the ones that survived
and were accepted did not lay as far as I could tell.  So, my thoughts are
that storing them a week or so is okay, assuming that they were never banked
before shipping, but beyond that point, there may be a decline in survival,
acceptance and quailty.

Check out the links listed under "Temporary Storage of Queens in Shipping
Boxes" at http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/menus/topics.htm and see if
there are ideas you can use.

allen
A Beekeeper's Diary: http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/

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