do I re-queen or combine?

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dudley

House Bee
Joined
Feb 22, 2009
Messages
154
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Location
Kent uk
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
2 apiary's 1 with 3 hives 2nd with 5 hives
What should I do?
I started keeping bees only last year with two nuc’s. Both colonies came through the winter very well but unfortunately now are both only drone laying. I had to keep knocking back Queen cells earlier in the year and one did swarm so I decided to artificially swarm the other hive before it swarmed too, and I hived it 5 miles away.
I have a well marked easy to find queen in one hive, so if I re-queen or combine I can knock her on the head, but the other queen has been impossible to find so far.

I do have the opportunity to combine as I have collected three swarms this year and have hived these only a few feet from these two drone laying hives.

But which swarms do I use or should I buy new queens?

Swarm 1, was only taken last week. I hived them in a 5 frame nuc box so they are only just starting to draw comb.

Swarm 2, was taken in May. On inspection today it looks like it too has swarmed or re-queened as I could not see eggs, the queen looks very small, and I found an old queen cell. And this is even though they have only drawn seven 14x12 frames and still have several frames undrawn, so space was not an issue. But I think this queen may be a virgin.

Swarm 3, was taken seven weeks ago and is doing well. I have marked the queen, there are eggs and a nice pattern of brood but I found a single capped queen cell, So I think they want to replace their queen.

So should I use any of these swarms to combine?
Remove the frame from Swarm 3 that has the capped Queen cell and put it in one of my drone laying hives, or try and buy replacement queens?
Thank you.
 
If it was me I'd find and get rid of the two queens in the drone laying colonies, combine them and later add the frame containing the queen cell from your good colony.

How long has the queen cell been capped though?, your good colony may swarm if it hasnt already by the time you get round to doing it, before you combine the drone layers. I'd make up a nuc QUICKLY from a couple of frames from the good colony including the queen cell just in case.
 
The drone layers will have ruined a lot of comb as well.
 

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