Queen Rearing Advice

[SteeveeTee]

Is the following plan likely to produce more colonies and leave reasonably large hives for this years crop? Is there anything utterly wrong in the plan?

My neighbours hive is artificially swarmed using the snelgrove board method, from this I take sealed QC just before due to hatch and put it in a mini mating nuc (with bees that have been in there for 24 hrs) containing drawn comb.

Then care for them as per instructions for mini mating nuc.

Q2. When the queen is laying should I put the bees in a two frame nuc with drawn comb and stores? What happens with the mini frames?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Bosleeu]

It sounds like a good plan to me.

If you can find/raise more queencells you just give the mating Nuc another one, then you can keep that as a spare. If you don't they will probably try to raise an emergency queen.

Otherwise just shake them out,they will join another hive. Keep the drawn frames if you can.

 

[B+.]

Is the following plan likely to produce more colonies and leave reasonably large hives for this years crop? Is there anything utterly wrong in the plan?

My neighbours hive is artificially swarmed using the snelgrove board method, from this I take sealed QC just before due to hatch and put it in a mini mating nuc (with bees that have been in there for 24 hrs) containing drawn comb.

Then care for them as per instructions for mini mating nuc.

Q2. When the queen is laying should I put the bees in a two frame nuc with drawn comb and stores? What happens with the mini frames?

Thanks for any help.

When the queen is mated, there will be eggs/larvae/brood and food in the mating nuc. These are usually used for the next queen to be mated if you are doing a series. Alternatively, they could be placed above a colony (with paper) to emerge and join the colony.
If you transfer these to the 2 frame nuc they will have to start again. The brood would probably be sacrificed. The queen will want to stay in that nuc if she has a choice.

 

[oliver90owner]

Read ''mini mating nuc'' as just that - a small box for mating purposes only. She will need more bees to be able to expand the colony quickly - where do you think they need to come from?

For just the one colony increase, a mating nuc is just an unnecessary complication. Colony increase nearly always means some reduction in the crop.

 

[dn170221]

possible downside is that you appear to be artificially selecting for "swarminess"

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

possible downside is that you appear to be artificially selecting for "swarminess"

Not necessarily.

My neighbours hive is artificially swarmed using the snelgrove board method

We don't know whether that was for increase or a reaction to swarm cells.

 

[SteeveeTee]

Thanks for the replies, was intending to do this with queen cells from a 'normal' AS following production of Queen cells, but under usual circumstances so not selecting from a particularly swarmy hive.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

You can re-use a mini-nuc for another queencell - or wait until all the brood has emerged and smoke (to get them to fill with honey) and shake out - the bees should find another hive to go in and will have some honey to give to beg for entry.