# How long can I keep a queen in a queen cage?



## Tomorrow River Beekeeper (Aug 27, 2006)

I recieved a new queen today and was planning on requeening a hive that has currently has a three year old queen. Spent most of the afternoon looking thru the existing hive trying to locate the queen. No luck, very frustrating. This is my first attempt at requeening. I left the hive with a queen excluder seperating the two hive bodies so that I may concentrate on the half with eggs in a week or so. Is there any way that I may keep the new queen alive. She has 4 attendants in the cage along with her. I've lightly sprayed them down with some sugar water this evening. Any suggestions? I would like to go back to the existing hive and find that queen, but it supposed to rain and be in the 40's for the next couple of days. Weather back in the 50's with sunshine about 4 days from now. Any advice would really be appreciated.


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## djuniorfan8 (Jun 15, 2004)

*Finding Queen*

I know your frustration! I went to do splits Friday and ended up doing requeening. First box was filled with drone brood. This was a swarm queen from last year, so i figured no problem i got new queens. I had found her earlier and "thought" i seperated the frame enough she would stay, no such luck. We searched every frame. Finally i just sprayed everyone with Honey-b-Healthy and placed the queen cage in the upper deep and added a queen cell. Maybe one will take before next inspection. My other hives were strong and they had built some capped supercedure cells, so i just let them do their job. I just used the Queens in some small 3 frame splits in case i need them. 
Sorry to get off your question. I think the best way to find a queen is 1.) mark her 2.) take your time 3.) seperate the frames as you look.

- BEE Dude


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

*I've lightly sprayed them down with some sugar water this evening.*

Please do not spray the queen cage with syrup!
You can give them a droplet of syrup or water on the screen near the candy.
When you can not find the queen you can place the excluder between the brood chambers as you have done. Then, return in 4 days to look for eggs, Most hives will build emergency queen cell cups or queen cells over brood within 24 hours.
Here is a neat trick. Queenless bees will move over to a caged queen when you place her on the top bars of a queenless brood chamber or nuc.
Sometimes when I can not locate the queen on the frames I shake the bees off into the lower brood chamber , place the queen excluder on, and walk away.
You can also make your divide over the excluder, wait at least overnight and make the divide.
I have kept queens in the 3 hole candy cages for a week.
Good Luck,
Ernie
Queen breeder.


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## tonyp (Mar 16, 2008)

If I were you I would store her in one of your most populous hives to keep her warm. Last week I requeened a single deep hive and put the cage on the top bars and it turned cold a couple of days later and I found her and her attendants dead in the cage. Lucky for me I caged the old queen and saved her.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

If you keep her in a dark quiet place (and assuming there are live attendants) you can give them one drop of water a day and they will live on the candy for a week or more. DO NOT SPRAY THEM WITH SYRUP!!!


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