# How Long Will Queen Live in Shipping Container



## Cuttingedgelandinc (Mar 3, 2015)

TwoBFlying said:


> Have ordered 2 queens to do a late summer split. My question is how long can the queen survive in the shipping box??? I don't want to start the split until I have the queens. The type of split I plan on doing is selecting brood frames and placing them in a deep hive body on top of a queen excluder over the donor hive. I plan to wait 24 to 48 hours until a sufficient number of nurse bees go up into the newly split hive body. At this point I would remove the new hive body and place the queens in the new split. I just want to know how much time I have without over stressing the queens. Thank you for your time and help.


Assuming that they come with attendants in the cages, keep them in a dark cool place such as a basement or closet. Give them a drop of water on the screen 1-2 times a day. 
I have held queens for a week like this. I don't know exactly how long you can keep them without adverse effects but if you start to see dead attendants, it's time to introduce them.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Why not simply do the split 24 hrs prior to the estimated arrival date? Even if the queens are a day late you're still good. I believe that this would be far better than keeping the queens inside the cages. Heck, even if the queens are a week late, just cut out any cells and introduce the queens. Sure, we all know that queens can survive for a long time in cages, but I'm pretty confident that this confinement is not beneficial to them or your objective.


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## fNWABEES (Mar 5, 2017)

Early July I wanted to split my hive. I ordered the queen on the weekend, and of course she didn't ship until Monday. I went in and made the split on Monday. The queen arrived on Wednesday. I left her in the box until the following Monday. Then went in and found out which of my hives, original or split, had the queen cells. I smashed all the queen cells and put her into the new split. I checked on her two days later and the bees had her out of her cage. Now, she's laying up a storm and doing awesome. So I believe a week would be no problem. BTW the attendants were still doing great too.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

If they have candy and attendants and you give them a drop of water everyday they can easily last two weeks or more. If you replace the attendants from time to time they can last indefinitely.


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## buzzsaw (Jul 2, 2011)

I have alway found when the need to hold queens in their shipping cage a "warm" dark location is best. Thinking is to try and create an environment similar to the brood chamber.


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## TwoBFlying (Jun 18, 2017)

Thanks everyone for the great information. It is a HUGE help


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Dark and quiet are helpful. Queen longevity is much better with low stress.


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