I checked on my newly installed bees this morning. The queen was still in the cage!! There was no sign that the bees were eating the candy plug at all! I can’t believe it. I was so pleased that I installed the package right this time and now the bees didn’t do their part!
Unfortunately, it’s been 4 days since I installed them. (I had a busy week.) I hope the queen is OK still. I let her out. She looked fine. Small. I think what happened is that the bees were all to busy eating all the honey and pollen I gave them and they weren’t interested in the candy plug.
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I know I am commenting late, but did you poke a hole in the candy plug? Sometimes the bees cannot grab onto the smooth candy plug and so they cannot eat her out. It could also be that they had not accepted her yet or you just had lazy bees. 🙂
No I did not poke a hole. I will try that next time.
I reased another queen a few days ago. same thing, they didn't touch the candy. They prefer honey. The queen that I disco bed in this post took a while to start laying, 3 weeks, but she's good now. I opened the cage on the queen I bought this week after a day. They seem very happy with her, just not interested in candy.
Maybe I'm positioning the cage wrong? Will definitely poke home next time. Though it's so big deal to release her after a day or two.
I meant to say "no" big deal