RE-queening

[aseeryl]

HI
I introduced a new Q to a nuc successfully about 10 days ago. There weren't many bees as they had been declining over a Q- period.

There is not much evidence of laying yet - a few eggs at the weekend. Up north the weather is poor, and I was thinking of putting in a frame of "about to hatch" brood from another hive.

Question is, in that I don't know how fast they will start hatching, will it matter if I don't brush off the clinging bees or will they try to kill the queen in the nucleus? I can brush them off easy enough but I'm bothered about brood cooling.
Or am I being paranoid after reading so many of other peoples horror stories?

 

[oliver90owner]

Paranoid.

Brush, shake, blow, smoke, benzaldehyde, (or whatever) them off the frame.
If it is a 'hatching brood frame' will they not be hatching - like now?

Temperature might be a problem up the mountains in the north of Scotland.

NOW - what do YOU mean when you say 'There weren't many bees'.

I take that to mean there were only just adequate house bees for brooding - although a shortage may well be sufficient for the queen laying few eggs.

So this is not a 'nuc' as we would expect a nuc to be described, or are you using the term nuc to refer to the almost empty beetainer?

Trying to do anything with too few bees is always going to be an uphill struggle. You need to sort out the priorities and get an action plan right at the beginning. Much better than all these after-thoughts.

It would have seemed to me from reading between the lines that you should have ensured enough bees before introduction of the queen. Adding hatching brood is then a 'leg up' for the colony to get them going faster, not an emergency measure like it reads (between the lines, of course).

Does this nuc have an OMF? if so cover it.

Is there any top ventilation? If so close it.

Is there any top insulation? If not, sort some.

RAB

 

[RoofTops]

I introduced 6 new queens to 6 nucs recently, the nucs being made from two hives which were dismantled and the nucs set in a ring around the original hive stand. When I checked about a week later they were all still there and laying (sigh of relief) but in 3 of the nucs they had made emergency queen cells which were capped. From the timing they must have started the queen cells while the new queens were still in their cages and therefore I guess the distribution of queen substance was poor. I'll check again in another week and if there are queen cells this time then clearly they want to replace the queens but I am hoping this will not be the case. But it is something to be aware of when a queen is added to a colony where there are eggs and young larva. If I had left them for two weeks before inspecting I might have lost the new queens to the emergency jobs. It also reinforced for me the need to shake bees off the frames to check for queen cells. I could see two queen cells on one frame and after removing them was just about to put the frame back when I decided to give them a shake - and this revealed another cell which I would have missed had I not removed the bees from the frame. How often do we read on this forum people losing swarms and swearing there were no queen cells present at the last inspection. If you don't shake the bees from every frame you cannot be certain there are no queen cells.

At the same time as the frame shaking and cell squashing I also introduced two queens to almost broodless hives. There should be no danger of them raising early queen cells as there was only a bit of sealed brood in each. In the weeks before the introduction the bees were just hanging around the entrances doing not a lot but within a few days of the new queens being added they were bringing in pollen and were much more active. I'll check after 7 days but things are looking hopeful with these two.

 

[aseeryl]

I quite agree with rooftops - it's easy to miss a queen cell in the corner of a frame, especially when the bees are milling around rapidly.

In part this is what happened here. The "nuc" or 4 frame beetainer (I like that - good description) started about 6 weeks ago when I found a missed QC in a Q- hive. This was split to another site with 2 good frames of brood and "shaken in" nurses etc. Unfortunately, the queen was unsuccessful and I put in another - originally ordered 3 weeks ago and in place for 12 days now
Hence, this was not quite unplanned, numbers have declined - seemingly quite rapidly over the past 2weeks or so - with what were, presumably, then brood only remaining and very little foraging (I'm wondering if looking after the small number of eggs takes priority) . They have been under heavy wasp attack.

I have put the winter insulation under the roof, closed down the entrance and given some syrup. The box being used has a solid floor.

In retrospect, maybe I should have combined the failed beetainer and tried again later with a new queen, but didn't know at the time what would happen.

Anyway, Oliver, the important point is to remove all nurse bees from the donor frame.

Cheers.

 

[aseeryl]

Edit doesn't seem to be on.
I was only going to add that There is a dummy board in place with the spare space blocked with an old cushion. Wasp traps are in place

Seems a pity to waste what could be a good queen without trying all the options