SunnyRaes
House Bee
- Joined
- May 26, 2012
- Messages
- 195
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Devon
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 5 planned, in reality 7 + 1 nuc + 1 A/S into a commercial for a friend
So, we have a DLQ / Laying worker in one of our hives, and it has been like this for some time. The original intention was to merge with another colony, so we thought we would try adding a frame of brood a week, but I think we've given up on that idea as we really wouldn't gain anything by doing that, other than risk a new buckfast queen!
So we'll simply house the nuc with the buckfast queen in a new hive on the same site in the next week or 2.
The most common advice we've seen is to dump the Q- hive in a hedge, and leave the stand empty. The bees will merge into the neighbouring hives (especially if we've smoked them so they've taken on honey) and none of these hives will let the DLQ or laying worker in the door.
So, if we are going to do this, does it actually matter how far away we dump the hive? I know that if we want them to go back to their original hive with the hope of losing the DLQ / laying worker you're supposed to go 50-100 feet away, but we aren't, so can we just dump it over the fence at the bottom of the garden about 10 feet away?
We should say that some distance away would be along a railway embankment (not massively accessible) behind neighbours gardens, so isn't an ideal solution
So we'll simply house the nuc with the buckfast queen in a new hive on the same site in the next week or 2.
The most common advice we've seen is to dump the Q- hive in a hedge, and leave the stand empty. The bees will merge into the neighbouring hives (especially if we've smoked them so they've taken on honey) and none of these hives will let the DLQ or laying worker in the door.
So, if we are going to do this, does it actually matter how far away we dump the hive? I know that if we want them to go back to their original hive with the hope of losing the DLQ / laying worker you're supposed to go 50-100 feet away, but we aren't, so can we just dump it over the fence at the bottom of the garden about 10 feet away?
We should say that some distance away would be along a railway embankment (not massively accessible) behind neighbours gardens, so isn't an ideal solution