Craftypint
New Bee
I just did my first inspection of the year and found the queen and then 6 uncapped QC and 1 capped. 5 of the QC were around the edges of frames but the capped one was more in the middle. Wasn't sure if this was likely to be a swarm or supercedure and if swarm I was very lucky that the queen hadn't already swarmed. Having read StephenT's recent thread I didn't want to risk leaving it so carried out a 'Nucleus' method artificial swarm from the Haynes book, leaving 2 uncapped QC.
The hive didn't look rammed with bees, there was BIAS on 5 frames and plenty of stores on the others (12x14 single bb).
Does this seem sensible? I'm a bit concerned having split them with some cold nights still to come (although I'm in London so warmer than most places). I'm guessing that if it was supercedure they'll just do it again in the nuc and if one of the boxes ends up without a queen I can combine the 2 boxes again in a few weeks?
The hive didn't look rammed with bees, there was BIAS on 5 frames and plenty of stores on the others (12x14 single bb).
Does this seem sensible? I'm a bit concerned having split them with some cold nights still to come (although I'm in London so warmer than most places). I'm guessing that if it was supercedure they'll just do it again in the nuc and if one of the boxes ends up without a queen I can combine the 2 boxes again in a few weeks?