I've not had any problem with taking a queen out of a hive (with a frame of bees and brood) and putting her in a observation hive for 3 or 4 hours and returning her back to her hive. I was just wondering how long you could keep her out without having a problem when returning her. Jack
I would think that anything past 24 hours and you will have problems thats a guess. But im not sure how long the queens pheromones will stay with the hive. I would venture to guess you could probly keep a younger queen out longer than an older queen simply because as the queen ages her phermone level drops. or so im told
I would think 12 hours max. At 24 hours you would suspect most hive would be starting construction of cells which could make placing any queen back into the box difficult.
