# I removed the wrong cork from the queen cage on my first installation



## wildbeekeeper (Jul 3, 2010)

you should be ok. I had a two friends do the same thing.... one queen flew away but was found sitting on the next hive over (he waited to long to actually put bees in hive after taking cork out. the other one, the queen came out and was fine. three days can be tricky for having the workers acccept her, but a good percentage of time its ok....its the other percentage when its not ok taht you have to worry!


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

You may be fine. Some do the direct release of qeens in packages and have success. I personally don't recommend it, and absolutely not for newbees. What's done is done. Give them a few days and then take a look. You'll be looking for eggs. If you don't know what eggs look like then start searching online so that you get an idea what you're looking for. Make sure to feed your bees. Also, you might want to start looking for a queen supplier that has queens in stock. I wouldn't order yet, but get things in place if you need one.


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## giant pumpkin peep (Mar 14, 2009)

Look for eggs in a few days...I you need to get another most package haulers bring a few extra just for this issue.


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## chasingrabbits (Mar 26, 2011)

Thanks for the input. I went back out and checked them about an hour ago. I have two hives that I installed today. The first one (which I screwed up on), had seven dead bees lying on the landing ramp and on the top of the package box (which I had placed in front of the hive). The other hive had no dead bees visible. Here's a couple of pictures I took of the ramp and package box...

















Any thoughts or concerns?


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## Stooge King (Dec 3, 2010)

Rabbit, looking at your top picture 
If you're startinf with just foundation I may see an issue I believe. 
I've seen on several other threads that you should have started with a single box or the bees will only fill out frames 3-7 in box boxes and never go back and fill out the outside frames in ther bottom box.
Now if you have drawn comb already - then I'll shut up


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## chasingrabbits (Mar 26, 2011)

I am starting with just foundation, but the top box is a hive top feeder. Just above the brood chamber is a spacer. Rather than placing the queen cage between the frames, the spacer allowed me room to put it on top of the frames. I'll remove the spacer after inspection if the queen is not in it (which she shouldn't be in this particular hive because of the cork issue).


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## snapper1d (Apr 8, 2011)

She should be in the hive.If she had of flown off the bee would of went with her.


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## chasingrabbits (Mar 26, 2011)

*Update*
I did my first inspections on both of my hives a week after installing the packages. The hive in which I removed the wrong queen cage cork had no signs of any queen and looked much weaker than the other hive. I wasn't able to locate a queen or any eggs in that hive. I didn't locate the queen in my other hive either, but there were plenty of eggs laid on a couple of frames in that hive as evidence that she is there.

If all goes well, I'm scheduled to pick up a new queen on Friday (almost 2 weeks after the package installation). On the advice of a couple of local beekeepers, I've also taken one of the drawn frames with eggs from the stronger hive and swapped it with a frame from the queenless hive.

We'll see how it goes...


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## dgale (Sep 8, 2009)

Just make sure that original queen isn't in there before you add the new queen - were the original package queens marked? When you put the new queen in the hive in her cage, the bees should be extremely interested in her and should engulf the queen cage in short order - if not, you still have a queen in there that's not laying or you have queen cells. Speaking of, make sure you remove any queen cells they make with the brood you are adding from the other hive - do it once when you first put the queen cage in and check again before you remove the cork to be sure they are all gone. Again, the bees should be really interested in the queen cage - if not, their allegence is elsewhere and your new queen will get killed when she is released. Also, I'd leave this new queen corked in her cage in the hive for 3-4 days before pulling that cork - give them plenty of time to get used to her first.


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