Boosting splits

[Bettenham]

Would it be ok to shake some more nurse bees from donor colony into a couple of splits made 4 days ago? I think I have left the splits too weak and the main colony too strong. Will they fight?

 

[Sutty]

I don't know how long it takes to develop a different colony odour!
I'd guess it would probably be ok but not certain. Maybe add a spray of air freshener too?
Alternatively give them a frame of emerging brood even if you have to remove a frame of stores, and feed them if so.

 

[Antipodes]

Would it be ok to shake some more nurse bees from donor colony into a couple of splits made 4 days ago? I think I have left the splits too weak and the main colony too strong. Will they fight?

If you can spare bees from another healthy colony, you could shake bees off frame/s onto a platform at the entrance. If you shake them directly into the colony there will be fighting. If shaken at the entrance, I find the older bees quickly take off back to the donor colony, but the young bees crawl into their new home. Best done during a flow.

 

[JamezF]

Best done during a flow.

Indeed. I gather the guards are far less fussy about accepting "foreign" bees when there's plenty of food coming in.

James

 

[Bettenham]

Thanks all. I might try shaking a frame of nurse bees with some air freshener and stand back!
They will be from the donor hive which I split from on Tuesday and I underestimated how many would fly back to the original site. The problem with adding more frames is that as they are queen less they might make more QCs which is going to mess with timings and the now hopefully sealed QC I left them with? I'll have a better understanding when I look in today. Hopefully the bees can sort something from my mismanagement!

 

[Curly green finger's]

Don’t worry about using air freshener shake your nurse bees into a container spray liberally with tepid water open up your split and tip the nurse bees in .

 

[ericbeaumont]

nurse bees from donor colony into a couple of splits

As Antipodes suggested, put a sloping board up to the nuc, shake bees onto it and up they go. Easy to use house bees out of a super. All done in 5 minutes.

 

[simonwig]

Don’t worry about using air freshener shake your nurse bees into a container spray liberally with tepid water open up your split and tip the nurse bees in .

A word of caution, check hard for a queen on the frame(s) of bees you are going to add before doing this.

I recently got a frame to shake in, having isolated "The Queen" in the donor hive. On returning to check the receiving hive I found two dead queens, the original receiving hive marked queen and an unmarked one that I can only assume was a supercedure queen from the donor hive.

Simon

 

[Bettenham]

A word of caution, check hard for a queen on the frame(s) of bees you are going to add before doing this.

I recently got a frame to shake in, having isolated "The Queen" in the donor hive. On returning to check the receiving hive I found two dead queens, the original receiving hive marked queen and an unmarked one that I can only assume was a supercedure queen from the donor hive.

Simon

Will do!

 

[drex]

I check for loss of flyers after 2 days and if numbers are low, shake in some more without problem. However it is 5 days for you, I would use air freshener

 

[blackcloud]

Take them from a qx'ed super -you shouldn't get queens or drones diluting the volume then.
If possible remove a newly built nuc from the apiary immediately to lessen the bleed off

 

[Moobee]

Or add a frame of sealed & emerging brood (with no QCs!)