How to introduce a Queen with no attendant bees.

[BeeScout]

Background:
I have only been beekeeping a short time. I relocated a very small swarm into a hive body and gave them pollen sub. and sugar water. I failed to reduce the entrance sufficiently and robber bees came into the hive after the sugar water. This morning the small hive was down to just the queen. I put the queen in a queen cage (no attendants) with a cork in each end and hung it in the honey super in a strong hive in my yard.

My Plan:
Tomorrow I plan to go to another beehive I have in the country. I thought I would bring back a couple of frames of honey covered with bees, and combine the new bees with the caged queen. In a few days I will release the queen.

Question: Will the bees feed the queen through the cage? Will this plan work? Any suggestions?

[Michael Bush]

>Question: Will the bees feed the queen through the cage?

Since they are queenright and since this is a super and unlikey to have nurse bees, it's doubtful.  More likely they will kill her.  But it is possible they might take care of her, just doubtful.

> Will this plan work?

Your plan does not seem to include any brood or anything that would anchor the bees to the new hive (brood will) nor anything that will allow for the drift back to the original hive (like shaking in more bees).

> Any suggestions?

Two frames of brood, two more frames of bees shaken in.  Leave them queenless over night then put the queen in.  Meanwhile catch four fuzzy bees off of the capped brood combs (young bees are fuzzy) and put them in the cage with the queen until you can set up the new hive and let it set overnight.