Two very different hives - evening things out?

[Jambo]

Folks

Your thoughts please. I'm new and I'm posting this in the nitwit section so be gentle and constructive please.

In my area, there seems to be a flow on NOW - RBWH is coming into full bloom and the brambles are still going too. I guess in a couple of weeks it'll all be over, and this is my best chance of a honey crop.

I have three colonies at very different stages so wondering if there is anything I can do to improve my outcome, both in terms of honey crop and overwintering success.

I started with two overwintered nucs in late April, 2016 queens.

Hive A
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A bit slow to get going. Now going great guns, on double brood and I gave them a second super on 22 July as the top one was getting rather heavy. Original Q still there, and (touch wood) do not seem to have made any swarming preps. These bees seem to have read the same books as me, in fact I think some of them are members on here.


Hive B
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Started out the stronger of the two. To cut a long story short, I believe they tried to swarm when I was on holiday in late June as I haven't seen the 2016 queen since getting back. Clipped queen hence I didn't appear to have lost a significant numbers of bees. While Queenless they were raising Qcs like mad, so with the advice of a friend we split and made a nuc. Again to cut a long story short, 2017 Queen was confirmed laying on 22 July when I saw some 1-2 day old eggs. No other brood in any stage in the nest - it has been a month without a laying queen. Nest has 7 frames of drawn comb with patchy stores in it, 4 frames of foundation. Super is half full at a push - all drawn though.


Nuc
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Daughters of Hive B, 2017 queen laying, quite happy. No honey crop expected here obviously


Way forward
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As I alluded to earlier, I wonder if I can intervene a bit to improve the outcome. Clive de Bruyn's book emphasises managing an apiary rather than individual colonies, so this is something I am trying to think about - certainly my beginner brain has been happy enough so far if I can think a colony at time.

Hive A, very happy with - the only concern is if they keep building up so rapidly and try to swarm late in the year - maybe?

Hive B is down on numbers and I suppose some mature foraging bees are going to have to get demoted to nurse bees to look after the newly laid eggs, and obviously the eggs finally being raised now aren't going to forage me a honey crop. They're also not brilliantly placed for overwintering, I feel.

I am wondering about moving "some" frames of sealed brood with or without nurse bees (?) from Hive A to Hive B, to even things out a bit.

What do you think? Should I do nothing and run my gains on Hive A and cut my losses on Hive B, or can I make the whole greater than the sum of the parts?

What risks do I have? I have no reason to think either hive has any disease, no varroa spotted. I obviously need to make sure that Hive A's Queen remains in Hive A, that would be tragic.

Anything else I'm not thinking of? I suppose recombining the nuc to hive B would be an option, but I would like to go into winter with 3 colonies if possible.

Any constructive and friendly advice appreciated.

 

[enrico]

In an apiary of three hives for some reason you always seem to have one good, one mediocre and one poorer. Ironically it is not always the same hives each year. I refrain from trying to improve a bad hive with other than a better queen. I chose the daughters of my best queens to requeen. As long as when you move things around you keep a careful eye on if it makes any difference then you will learn for the future. I am not going to give you advice on what to do as I really need to see the hives to make those decisions. Just enjoy looking after them and get a feel for how they all work
E

 

[Vortex]

You don't say how many frames of E/L/B you have in hive A..
However at this point moving brood about won't significantly affect your honey crop but will have an impact on the over-wintering ability of the colonies - your honey crop at this point is effectively determined by your current colony flying strength as by the time the current brood emerges and is flying your season will be over (assuming your 2 week estimate is accurate).
If A is really strong say 8+8 E/L/B then moving a couple of frames of capped brood into your newly requeened hive will give it a boost as you'll reduce the reduced flyers gap that is about the occur down to 3 weeks.. the same is true in respect of boosting the nuc.
I've done this recently with a nuc to stop the nuc swarming ..

 

[Jambo]

Thank you both.

With respect to the amount of brood I'm not sure as I haven't done a thorough inspection of Hive A in a couple of weeks.

No idea if my two weeks is accurate tbh! First year, but as far as I know there is nothing to get excited about here after RBWH. But maybe it'll keep going right through August.

If moving frames, would you move nurse bees also? I'm thinking moving bare frames would be the surest way to avoid moving Q, other than catching her.

 

[beeno]

Hi Jambo, It would appear that a thorough inspection of hive A is needed looking for QC and ensuring that the queen has enough space to lay in the brood nest. If all is well that will give you some honey. If not they may clean the super out as they swarm.
It is early days with hive B and the nuc, I would wait and see how they build up before carrying out any manipulations. Good luck.

 

[Vortex]

If moving frames, would you move nurse bees also? I'm thinking moving bare frames would be the surest way to avoid moving Q, other than catching her.

Yes .. when moving frames of brood you shake all the bees off .. t
The only time that's not a good idea is if you're making a split with QCs then you move the whole frame into a nuc.. if you accidentally move the queen they'll destroy the QC in the nuc and pull EQC in the colony.