Jerry Barbor asks about putting queens in queen right bank hives and the
varied response by colonies.  I have done this in various ways for years.
From my observations I would make the following remarks:

1.  Queens from the same breeder are quite different in their attractiveness
to worker bees.

2.  If you put even ten or twelve queen cages into a top nuc/bank and
observe them by opening the hive quietly you'll see that bees are always
clustered over some queen cages and practically ignore others in the same
shipment from the same breeder.  If you mark the cages that the bees ignore
you find that the queens are soon rejected by the colonies to which you
introduce them.

3.  You can put queen cages on top of a two story hive with 15 combs of bees
and an old queen successfully provided all the new queens are attractive,
and that you don't put too many queens in.  I don't know the magic number
because every colony is different.

4.  If you put the queens on top, or at the top, of a three story colony
with the old queen kept in the bottom two boxes with an excluder your bank
will be more successful.  You can also bank queens over a new queen
successfully if you put them at the top of a three story colony.

5.  Success rate seems to be based upon the amount or level of queen
pheromone in the bank, or distance from the lower queen.  Queenless banks
seem to do best, all other things being equal.  You can also keep queens in
a single story queenless hive making manipulation and nutrition feeding
easier without competition from a laying queen.

6.  If the bank colony is nervous, or uneven tempered, your success rate
will go down.

7.  I've known a beekeeper who kept 30 queens on top of a bank colony in a
yard.  He used to put thump tacks in the candy end of the cage to keep the
bees from removing the candy.  He moved the yard but left the queen bank.
He forgot they were there and when he came back in 40 days the colony had
swarmed but the queens appeared to have been properly cared for.

8.  If bank colonies are fed Fumidil-B for several days prior to being used
as a bank, and the queens and their attendants are also fed, the bank will
be more successful.  I have observed that the colony bees may even be
noticeably quieter and less nervous after being fed Fumidil-B.

9.  The variables in individual queens, queens from different breeders, and
differences between the nature, nutrition, and behavior of the bank colony
all have a role in the success of your chosen bank.

10.  Queens seem to be bankable whether or not they have attendants in the
cage.  Though candy cages with attendants may be less stressful on the
queens because there is no gap between their being fed by the bees in the
package or battery box and then being fed by bees in the bank.

11.  Then sometimes all you think you know goes out the window for
unexplainable reasons.

The differences between colonies are surprising and complex once you begin
to carefully observe bee behavior.

James C. Bach
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