I'm wondering how long mated queens can be banked in cages within a queen banking hive that is properly maintained. I've been given a wide range of answers from not longer than a couple weeks to 6 months.  

I am not aware of research,  but can vouch for ground truth,  I have kept banked queens for 6 months with no apparent ill effects.
You will notice a bit of a die off.  Such as if you start with 50  at the end of 6 months you will be down to about 30,  but when hived  they seem to do just the same as ones banked very short times.

We under ran  our packages this spring due to weather,  so I banked right at 200  in april, I used from the bank all summer,  and in the end of Aug  we put the balance in 2 frame nucs that we split from underperformers.  Queens did fine.




Charles

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