Blunder, did I kill the queen?

[thibault]

One of my nuc which I made looked slightly weak, recently got a mated queen out of it, but I wanted to add a bit of number to it, so I took a frame full of brood from 1 of my strong hives with nurse bees on it and put it in the nuc (making sure the queen was not on it). I heavily smoked the nuc as well. Today I had a look and found queen cells, and a dead queen in front of the nuc. My question : do you think the bees from the other hive killed her?

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[enrico]

Are you SURE you didn't move the queen from the other hive too. Check in that hive for eggs!
E

 

[thibault]

Yes pretty sure, spend about 10 minutes looking on that frame, and she is a marked queen, moreover I am not too bad at queen spotting lol, manage to see all the virgin queens I reared even in double brood box hive. And they have started queen cell as well. Were you thinking of queen fight? Both would have died?

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[thibault]

Or I could have damaged her during manipulations as the brood frame (foundationless, very hot, and filled with nectar at the top) started to get detached and lean against the frame where the queen was. Indeed it was a bit of a mess, had to put rubber bands to reinforce the frame. She could have quickly gone onto that frame and get hurt while I was putting the bands on. In fact, I would like to know if you can add a brood frame with bees on it to a weak queen right nuc without endangering the queen.

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[Poly Hive]

My understanding of adding brood is this.

You add a frame of brood with NO bees.

Add bees and .... see the pain above.

KISS

PH

 

[thibault]

My understanding of adding brood is this.

You add a frame of brood with NO bees.

Add bees and .... see the pain above.

KISS

PH

Lol, indeed painful as she was the daugther of a nice carnolian, and looked beautiful. Now I dont know what the granddaughter's gonna be like, plus 1 month lost... Lesson learned

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[Poly Hive]

So lesson learned and hopefully one not to be repeated. I understand the logic but.. it don't work like that.

One has to keep in mind Pheromones at all times.

PH

 

[drex]

My understanding of adding brood is this.

You add a frame of brood with NO bees.

Add bees and .... see the pain above.

KISS

PH

Totally with PH on this one. The frame is best with all capped, soon to emerge brood. ( Takes less looking after by the bees - if the hive you are putting it into is that weak to struggle to look after uncapped larvae)

 

[Eyeman]

One of my nuc which I made looked slightly weak, recently got a mated queen out of it, but I wanted to add a bit of number to it, so I took a frame full of brood from 1 of my strong hives with nurse bees on it and put it in the nuc (making sure the queen was not on it). I heavily smoked the nuc as well. Today I had a look and found queen cells, and a dead queen in front of the nuc. My question : do you think the bees from the other hive killed her?

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You essentially performed a unite without allowing the donated bees to realise they were queenless. some have had success using 'air freshener' to mask the scent of the hive. All unites can be risky, some are more risky than others.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Some unite by leaving the bees open to light for a while - anyone tried this?
(It's not my usual practice however I've done it a couple of times as an experiment without issue).