chilled brood

SteveG · Apr 6, 2020

Inspected hives yesterday found drone laying queen. plenty of bees and queen seen. plan is to give the hive a brood frame from a strong hive. the question is the hives are 20 minute drive from each other. I'll place the frame in a nuc and move as fast as possible. I'm guessing by the time I place the hive back together, moved to other apiary we could be looking at 40 minutes until safely back in new hive. I'm worried about chilled brood. Thoughts please.

jenkinsbrynmair · Apr 6, 2020

Giving a frame to a colony with a DLQ is not the solution it will achieve nothing.
As you imply there is more than one hive there, squish the queen and either shake them out (my preference) or unite with another which IMHO is just a lot of faff to put a load of elderly bees into another colony - they will beg their way into the other hives after being shaken out anyway.

Repwoc · Apr 6, 2020

I have wondered if giving a frame of BIAS to a DLQ hive, leaving in the DLQ, would prompt the bees to raise supersedure cells. Has anyone tried this?

SteveG · Apr 6, 2020

Didn't give full picture - sorry. Looks like the queen only just become DL. there are still a few workers to hatch. lots of young bees, not just the winter workers. 5 good frames of bees. If i despatch the DLQ and introduce frame of eggs will they not produce queen??

jenkinsbrynmair · Apr 6, 2020

SteveG said:
Didn't give full picture - sorry. Looks like the queen only just become DL. there are still a few workers to hatch. lots of young bees, not just the winter workers. 5 good frames of bees. If i despatch the DLQ and introduce frame of eggs will they not produce queen??

The question is, are colonies advanced enough to have sufficient drones to have a hope of a succesful mating.

A DLQ is still a laying queen, the chances of the bees superseding her are fairly slim