Following up a split.

[Superneutrino]

Last week I had a pretty strong hive on double brood and i found an unsealed queen cell.

My plan is to increase number of hives.

I performed the first stage of a Pagden moving the original queen to a new box with some brood and some nurses (with mostly foundation as i have no drawn) on the original site and fed with 1:1. shifted the double brood box to the right with the QC in... All smooth.

Just a couple of questions ahead of inspecting this weekend for bee shenanigans:

1. If i go into the hive with the QC in and find they have made more... What should i do with them?
2. Should i continue to feed the queenright hive?
3. The next step of the pagden would be to move the old hive to the left of the queenright hive.... I dont have a spare hive stand/space on the current on to do this. Would swapping the hives over have the same effect? (Its a double stand).

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

1. If i go into the hive with the QC in and find they have made more... What should i do with them?

tear them down

1. Should i continue to feed the queenright hive?

why were you doing so in the first place, were they starving?

1. The next step of the pagden would be to move the old hive to the left of the queenright hive.... I dont have a spare hive stand/space on the current on to do this. Would swapping the hives over have the same effect? (Its a double stand).

that whole thing is an unnecessary add on to the manipulation which realistically is not needed. Don't even bother trying.

 

[Superneutrino]

Thanks for this!

I gave them a feed as most of the frames were straight foundation and there weren't a lot of stores to move over from the other hive thanks to the weather!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

They are probably piling in the stores now so you should be fine.

 

[Superneutrino]

They are probably piling in the stores now so you should be fine.

All best laid plans!... More queen cells and she tried to do a runner!

So bow shes in a nuc and i have two hives in the process of requeening!

 

[ericbeaumont]

More queen cells and she tried to do a runner!

Had you just removed the extra QCs they may have settled; feeding an AS colony with all its foraging flyers may have persuaded them to want to go for it.

 

[Superneutrino]

Had you just removed the extra QCs they may have settled; feeding an AS colony with all its foraging flyers may have persuaded them to want to go for it.

Yea, i was worried about leaving them with not enough in terms of stores, with just being on a box of foundation which i probably shouldnt have done!

They drew it and backfilled far quicker than i thought.

Its been my first time dealing with queen cells.

So now ive added the extra manipulation where the two hives have capped queen cells and the queen is now in a nuc. Some of the backfilled frames have been shifted about aswell.

So im hoping they all settle down a bit now!

You live you learn, i will know better next time!