The swarming mini-nuc

[kittietrixie]

Any advice gratefully received! I reared a queen cell successfully in a mini-nuc. I moved the laying queen and her bees to a nuc box to provide them with more space. The swarmed from the nuc despite having lots of drawn comb, a frame feeder and fondant. I found them and returned them to the mini-nuc thinking they might have had too much space. Enough space and food again in the mini-nuc but again they swarmed. All told, they swarmed 3 times and are now gone. At all times they had drawm comb, space and food. What did I do wrong, if anything.

 

[fiftyjon]

Was the nuc and mini-nuc position in direct sun?

 

[itma]

... At all times they had drawm comb, space and food. What did I do wrong, if anything.

Did they have any brood with them?
Was there any stores on the comb you gave them?

When you moved them into the nuc, did you move them more than 3 feet?

 

[user 6228]

If when you moved them you convinced them they were swarming you might have invoked all the nest decision making processes. That means they will look for the 40L bottom entrance etc... The 40L is independent of swarm size .This independance is understandable as the geometry of tree nests means small swarms are just as warm or warmer than bigger colonies.

 

[kittietrixie]

Hi. No, it was in the shade.

 

[kittietrixie]

Hi. No, there was no brood or stores - it was the beginnings of my beekeeping kingdom so there was no other colony from which I could take them. I thought I had compensated with the frame feeder and fondant, but perhaps not?

 

[kittietrixie]

Hi. If you are right, it is particularly painful as I had an empty national right beside the nuc but used my human brain to conclude that it would be too big for them!

 

[fiftyjon]

I expect that as there was no brood, there wasn't anything to keep them so off they went, possibly nothing to do with size of box.

Once I have laying queens in mini-nucs I remove the queens and introduce them into nucs, leave for a few weeks before moving them on to other colonies etc. after they have started laying well.