Split Dlemma, Advice Needed

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Mabee

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So I split my one hive in May, moved the old queen with brood and stores to a new nuc (i’ll call this hive OQ) and the old colony (i’ll call NQ) raised a queen which I heard piping so I know she hatched and I made sure there was only one cell, that was 2 weeks ago. The NQ colony has been bringing in lots of nectar and pollen and I was concerned the brood box would be honey bound due to the amazing smell and fanning at the entrance, so I did a quick check. Most is full of nectar and part capped honey, no eggs yet so i’ve let them have another brood box above so queen can lay if she’s mated, but concerned maybe she’s not but will leave a week. Weather been consistently good this month.
Into OQ hive, plan to do a quick inspection today, I can see from the tray the hive has a bad chalk brood issue. Damp isn’t an issue and have fed them but it’s not clearing up. I have a new queen arriving this week so will re-queen this hive. I was planning on keeping the old queen for now and moving to a new out apiary I have, just as a back up.
This is only my second year and I feel there is a lot going on and I want to get it right, what would you do, anything different?
 
So I split my one hive in May, moved the old queen with brood and stores to a new nuc (i’ll call this hive OQ) and the old colony (i’ll call NQ) raised a queen which I heard piping so I know she hatched and I made sure there was only one cell, that was 2 weeks ago. The NQ colony has been bringing in lots of nectar and pollen and I was concerned the brood box would be honey bound due to the amazing smell and fanning at the entrance, so I did a quick check. Most is full of nectar and part capped honey, no eggs yet so i’ve let them have another brood box above so queen can lay if she’s mated, but concerned maybe she’s not but will leave a week. Weather been consistently good this month.
Into OQ hive, plan to do a quick inspection today, I can see from the tray the hive has a bad chalk brood issue. Damp isn’t an issue and have fed them but it’s not clearing up. I have a new queen arriving this week so will re-queen this hive. I was planning on keeping the old queen for now and moving to a new out apiary I have, just as a back up.
This is only my second year and I feel there is a lot going on and I want to get it right, what would you do, anything different?
Squish the defective queen, at some point you have to draw the line and if she needed splitting and has established a new nest (sounds sub optimal with the chalk brood too) then she's mostly spent and there's no value in using up resources on her. If she was exceptionally good in her time and you really want her drones about for potential mating then it maybe worth letting her live out her life but too many sub optimal queens in an apiary will drive the average productivity right down. Good young queens are great, they'll build big colonies and barely take up your time, problem hives are often those with older queens and take up an inordinate proportion of your beekeeping time for very little return.
That would be my take anyway.
 
Squish the defective queen, at some point you have to draw the line and if she needed splitting and has established a new nest (sounds sub optimal with the chalk brood too) then she's mostly spent and there's no value in using up resources on her. If she was exceptionally good in her time and you really want her drones about for potential mating then it maybe worth letting her live out her life but too many sub optimal queens in an apiary will drive the average productivity right down. Good young queens are great, they'll build big colonies and barely take up your time, problem hives are often those with older queens and take up an inordinate proportion of your beekeeping time for very little return.
That would be my take anyway.
Thank you, she’s only a year old and has some chalk brood issues last year which cleared up but definitely worse this year, not sure her drones wouldn’t just pass on that gene..?
 

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