So today I decided it’s the best weather - took half day annual leave to try and find and mark the queens in artificial split nuc, main hive, and move the remaining 14 x 12 frames from the Bailey comb change into both of these to reinforce with some fresh capped brood.
main hive queen - larvae in the frames - now reinforced with a couple of frames of capped brood but still lots of bees - 3 supers mostly capped with honey as well - pleased seemed to find the queen very quickly at a glance.
Artificial split nuc - found the queen and marked - surprisingly few bees inside - reinforced with 3 frames of capped brood from Bailey comb change - hopefully helps get the colony increase in size quickly - this nucleus, and a caddon 14 x 12 hive is being donated to the local association apiary to help get it running.
now - the bailey comb change nuc (14 x 12 BShoneybee nuc base - Maisemore national brood body above (Queen excluder between) - eke above with an exit for drones - Queen excluder above and super).
Well it was absolutely packed with bees - there was no way they would fit in a single brood body - put the build out nationals in base of nuc and added 6 new foundation brood frames above - now has 12 national brood frames so just above the size of a normal hive - with a super above.
The beekeeper the colony is going to has a Hyde long hive adapted to allow her to keep bees easier - so super frames will be coming back to me and colony will be off to another local keeper for a week to ensure over 3 miles between moves (is a week too long/short? 2 moves - one from mine to 5 miles away - then back to 4 miles away from middle location).
There is 6 frames in there - however the bees are absolutely packed with no room to get the rest in - empty additional brood box to right which went on top with another 6 national brood foundation frames.
I must say I found the one handed queen catcher photoed so easy to use - easy to capture queen and so good for marking - made first queen marking so easy was really impressed.
Many thanks
Alex