>One caveat - warm water please, and I  wouldn't dunk the   queen  on a
>freezing day. 

One thing I forgot to mention in the sequence of events is to remove the queen cage from the package before shaking out the bees.  The aluminum strip slides sideways.

The kind of day determines what to do with her.  Usually, we just place the queen cage, screen up, on some outside frames so she is handy to add after the bees.  Some put the queen in after half the bees are shaken, but I don't see the need to make an extra motion.  When installing 100 packages, thirty seconds wasted on each hive means almost an extra hour of work.  A good beekeeper can install a hive a minute for 10 or 15 hives at a time if everything is in place and a helper is handy.

If it is cool, then the exposed queen cools down enough in the short time that the bees are being shaken in that she won't fly and dunking is unnecessary.  It is when the bees and the ambient temperature are warm that this risk becomes a concern, especially if it is still light out.

Usually, if it is dark and cool, the queen is happy to dive into he cluster on the hive floor, when the screen is torn off and the cage is held open side down, then tapped with a hive tool,  but if it is warm out and the queen has been caged long and there is enough light to fly, the queen could take off.  In my experience, however, when that happens, she often seems to find her own hive.

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm