Split mistake

[robmort]

2 days ago I made a split from a strong hive to create another queen by taking a couple of frames of eggs and brood with food etc. into a nucleus. I carefully inspected these frames to ensure the queen wasn't there.
Today I inspected the nucleus only to see the old queen there!
Given that I don't want a lot of QCs in the main hive, should I quickly put the queen back into the main hive, or leave things as they are and manage the QCs as they form?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Just reduce the QCs in the Q- side to one and leave them raise a new queen in there

 

[robmort]

I'm concerned I'll lose a lot of honey crop by leaving the main hive queenless for a while.

 

[Garry R]

I do this as my method of swarm control -- a parking nucleus if you will. I then strengthen the original queenless colony with frames of brood from the parking nuc after the queen is mated and laying, Don't really miss out on the brood rearing at all.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I'm concerned I'll lose a lot of honey crop by leaving the main hive queenless for a while.

well they'll have nothing else to do for a while apart from forage

 

[robmort]

1 week after the split I found 2 rather small sealed QCs and 1 larger open charged QC with a larva. Destroyed one the of sealed ones.
Is it safe to leave the poorer sealed one and the open one as insurance and risk a swarm, or do I keep only the larger unsealed one?

 

[enrico]

well they'll have nothing else to do for a while apart from forage

I agree, it can sometimes increase the honey crop

 

[ericbeaumont]

Is it safe to leave the poorer sealed one and the open one as insurance and risk a swarm, or do I keep only the larger unsealed one?

Avoid giving bees options: leave the best open QC and no others.

to create another queen by taking a couple of frames of eggs and brood with food etc. into a nucleus

This tiddly method is unlikely to have had sufficient nurse bees to produce a quality queen, and it's a stroke of luck that the strong colony has now done the job.