Should I move them into a hive?

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Ringlander

New Bee
***
Joined
Jun 8, 2020
Messages
67
Reaction score
42
Location
Norfolk UK
Hive Type
14x12
Number of Hives
5
Hi all,

A swarm I collected in June and placed in a 14x12 Poly nuc has settled in really well and has what seems to be a highly productive queen laying healthy, productive and calm workers. They are currently piling pollen and nectar into the hive, I think the source must be both Ivy and Himalayan Balsam. When I checked the hive two weeks ago they had 4 central frames with BIAS on about 50% of both sides with solid stores surrounding the brood while the outer 2 frames were about 50% full of stores with no brood. The nuc has put on about 4 kg since then and so I decided to check again as it must be getting pretty congested. Today the total quantity of brood is down to about 25%of each face of three frames, with pretty much every other available cell full with either nectar or pollen. The nuc seems to be rammed with bees in all seven seams. The queen is still laying, but there are almost no vacant cells for her to use as the centre of the brood patches that have emerged have been filled with nectar. What should I do? Leave them alone and hope that there are enough winter bees already to keep the colony going through the winter or move all six frames into a full size 14x12 poly hive with a couple of empty drwn frames and dummy the rest of the space down to give the queen more space to lay and the workers more space for their forage while avoiding too huge an increase so late in the season?
 
Options. Leave as is ( but I would not unless pushed) , super as Dani says, transfer to full hive and dummy, letting them expand as they will, or remove a frame of stores and put in empty comb.
It is a big poly nuc. I take some home made, wooden, 5 or 6 frame nucs through winter, wrapped up in a block, with no problem about being over crowded
 
Thanks guys, think I'll go for the move into a full hive. I should have said earlier that i have Apivar in right now so don't want to put a super on if I can help it. I thought it would be fine to over-winter them in the nuc but it now feels like I will be restricting the queens lay if I don't do something. Appreciate your help
 
Just as an update if anyone is interested I moved the overcrowded nucleus colony into a 14x12 poly hive with two extra frames of drawn foundation and a dummy board blanking off the remaining two undrawn frames. Just checked up on progress and they are back up to 4 frames with BIAS on 50% of each face and have filled the new frames to the brim. They have also bypassed the dummy board and started drawing and filling the remaining frames so I took the hint and have opened them right up. Thanks for the advice, looks like the bees agreed with it!
 

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