Queenless colonies

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white50car

New Bee
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Apr 22, 2011
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Location
Lancashire
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
3
Hi

Following AS 6 weeks ago I have 2 queenless colonies plus a laying queen in a nuc.

Do I amalgamate the nuc with it's original colony?
If yes, is it best to return the queenless colony to the nuc or put the nuc in with the queenless colony?

Is the newspaper trick the best way to do this?

Also thought I could take a frame of brood from the nuc before the amalgamation takes place and pop that in with my other queenless colony so they have an opportunity to make emergency Q cells.

Is this a good plan? Any other advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks.
 
Yes a test frame with eggs is the best thing to try first.

If the result is queen cells then it was Q- but if no queen cells perhaps Q+
 
As TB - but also consider location. Ideally you want to allow the Q+ colony to continue business as usual and disrupt the Q- (so Q+ on the bottom with external access). Given you only have the one known viable colony I would ensure you have good odds.

Do you need to do some location management before moving to combine?
As Tom has already said, make sure that they are Q-, a scrap could result in your prime queen being damaged.
 
As always......Before losing your only good queen (at the moment), how do you know the other two are queenless?. Like, have you checked and are you 100% sure?

Using a test frame as a means of raising a queen requires a strong colony, and is often, at best, simply a means of obtaining a scrubby queen to keep the colony from dwindling to nothing, and often followed by supercedure in the autumn (or earlier). It also entails another month before any real chance of new housebees and is subject to further possible delays.

On that basis I would suggest you buy in a laying queen for an early introduction and get the colony functioning properly - before laying workers give more trouble.

RAB
 
Hi,

First post!

Just thought I'd mention that we were in a similar position: performed AS on April 29th, presumed Q-, added test frame last week, checked again today to see eggs and larva :)
 

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