mated queen in apidea - yippee

[meidel]

now the hard part

Having seen eggs in the apidea I am going to unite them with a queenless colony using newspaper (pricked to get the bees chewing) over the Q- crownboard hole, bottom tray of apidea removed and this over the newspaper hole bit, close the entrance of apidea, super and eke around and roof over the lot.

Should I wait a week before checking or sooner?

Is there anything else I've forgotten?

 

[ratcatcher]

some video footage would be good, have often wondered about these mini nuc/mating hive's etc, and how you would go about adding them into a normal size hive

 

[meidel]

hmm doing this alone later this afternoon, so video footage not possible I'm afraid.

I'm introducing the apidea directly to the 14 x 12 brood box, placing it on top of the crown board feed hole with newspaper in between, making sure the apidea entrance is closed and the bottom tray removed so the bees can unite once they've chewed through the paper. The super and eke is so I can rest the roof over the whole thing.

 

[plumberman]

I would wait until there was capped worker brood present, worker being the key word.

 

[Finman]

.
You may look it next day. At least I do.

 

[itma]

I would wait until there was capped worker brood present, worker being the key word.

Damn right there.

 

[Poly Hive]

PH

 

[Hebeegeebee]

It's always good to see eggs so you know the queen is laying. You don't yet know if it's drones! However if she started to lay a few days after good weather, then there's a good chance that is girlie eggs and not boys.

I've put mini-nucs over the crown-board hole with newspaper and it works fine - most of the time. Queen acceptance is better if the queen is older than just a few days. 3 weeks is better so you may chose to wait a while.
You might want to mark the queen before-hand?

 

[meidel]

Hmm not risking the marking because the only successful markings were 1 out of 4, ie one disappeared and 2 swarmed and only one has stayed put. Anyway these queens which we've raised now appear large and look promising compared to when they were young freshly pulled out of cell virgins a couple of weeks ago, on the 24th I think ...

Luckily these yellow bees are not aggressive at all and seem to accept most bees into their hives - I know, not good when it comes to robbers, but so far not much to rob!