Queen Banking

Queen banking is the short-term storage of many caged queens in a single colony rich in young bees that feed them (the bank colony). When production comes in batches but use and sales are spread out, it lets you hold mated or virgin queens for anything from a few days to a few weeks. Banking is a temporary solution; the longer it lasts, the lower the queen quality and acceptance rate.

Why do you need a queen bank?

• Freeing up mating nucs: If a queen that has started laying is taken out and put in the bank, the nuc can be given a new cell straight away; production per nuc goes up.
• Timing mismatch: Queens start laying in batches, whereas the days for requeening, splitting or delivery are different.
• Keeping spares: Giving a queen immediately to a colony that has lost its own avoids a queenless period lasting weeks.
• Weather and transport hold-ups: When introduction or shipping is delayed by a few days, the queens can be held safely.

What should a bank colony be like?

Caged queens cannot feed themselves; they are fed through the cage mesh by worker bees. That is why the key quality of a bank colony is an abundance of young nurse bees.

• Very crowded: The bees must completely cover the bank frame.
• Rich in young bees: The young bees are continually renewed by regularly giving frames of capped brood about to emerge.
• Plenty of food: If there is no nectar flow, syrup and pollen (or a substitute) are given without a break; hunger is the main cause of queen losses in a bank.
• Queenless, or with its queen kept apart by an excluder: A queenless bank tends the queens more eagerly but wears out quickly and draws its own queen cells. In a queenright bank the colony's queen is kept in the bottom box by an excluder, and the bank frame goes between frames of open brood in the upper box; this arrangement can be used for longer.
• Healthy: A colony with a high varroa load or signs of disease is not used as a bank.

How do you set up a queen bank?

1. Prepare the colony: Choose a strong colony; for a queenright bank, fit an excluder and move frames of open brood and pollen into the upper box. Wait a day.
2. Prepare the bank frame: The cages are lined up on bars fitted inside a frame or on a perforated board. The mesh side of the cages must stay open, so that bees can reach each cage from both sides.
3. Arrange the cages: Cages must not touch each other; queens in adjacent cages can injure each other through the mesh.
4. Remove the attendants: Attendant workers are usually removed from cages put in the bank; the queen is fed by the bank colony's bees.
5. Insert the frame: The bank frame goes in the middle of the brood area, between the open brood and the pollen frame.
6. Keep records: Write the queen's batch, emergence or laying date and source on each cage.

How long can a queen stay in a bank?

Banking time should be kept as short as possible. Mated queens can be kept in a good bank for several weeks, but every day without laying causes the ovaries to shrink and delays the return to laying. Virgin queens, on the other hand, should be held for only a few days so they don't pass the age for mating; otherwise their chance of mating drops.

What are the drawbacks of banking?

• Loss of quality: A queen that isn't laying weakens over time; her return to laying is slower.
• Lower acceptance: A queen that has spent a long time in the bank is accepted less readily by the colony she is given to.
• Physical damage: Bank bees can injure the queen's legs and antennae through the mesh. Check the legs of a queen taken out of her cage carefully.
• Wear on the bank colony: Queenless banks in particular age quickly, draw their own queen cells or develop laying workers.

Looking after the bank colony

• Top up with capped brood: About once a week, give a frame of capped brood about to emerge from other colonies.
• Continuous feeding: If forage has stopped, never let syrup and pollen support lapse.
• Cage checks: Check the cages regularly; remove dead queens at once and record them.
• Wild queen cells: In a queenless bank, or one with brood in the upper box, destroy any queen cells the bees draw.
• Rotation: Over a long season, change the bank colony, or give it a break and return it to its normal arrangement.

Short-term storage: holding queens in a shipping cage

For waits of a few days that don't justify a bank, the queen can be kept together with a few attendant workers in a shipping cage with one compartment filled with candy (queen candy).

• Temperature: Room temperature, somewhere cool but not cold; a refrigerator or a spot next to a heater is unsuitable.
• Light: A dark, quiet place; direct sun or a closed vehicle quickly kills them.
• Moisture and water: Putting a drop of water on the cage mesh once a day stops the attendants going thirsty; the cage should not be soaked.
• Candy check: If the candy has dried out or run out, the queen goes hungry.
• Duration: As short as possible; if it will be more than a few days, move the queen to a bank or a nucleus.

An alternative to banking: reserve nucs

The healthiest way to keep spare queens is often not banking but small reserve nuclei (nucs, reserve mini-colonies). In a nucleus the queen keeps laying, the colony develops, the queen's quality is preserved, and when needed the whole nucleus can be united with a queenless colony.

Keeping a few reserve nucs in the apiary means a queen loss is no longer a crisis. Banking, on the other hand, suits production operations where large numbers of queens are held for a short time.