Uniting nuc with broodless hive

[stramorebees]

Hi all.
I'm looking for some advice on how to join a nuc to a broodless Q- hive.
The main hive is a National & has now no brood or Queen. The original hive Queen was killed & a caged replacement was introduced. A week later the queen was released, but not accepted in the hive. It has now no queen (or cells) & they are very angry!

I have a nuc that has currently a caged queen (introduced yesterday) on 2 frames of brood & I wanted to unite this with the bees in the national brood box. Ideally I would want all to end up in the Nuc as I don't have enough bees to work a full box.

1. would I need to wait until I have the queen released & laying before uniting?
2. what method of combining would be best? If using the news paper method, how do I overcome the difference in box size, & seal the 2 boxes?

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[mbc]

If the queens still in her cage surely you could unite the bees first - possibly by shaking icing sugar over them, or spraying them with scented syrup and then putting all the bees together in one box and put the queen in the middle of the two frames of brood.

 

[Poly Hive]

First question is have you established by using a test frame that this colony is indeed queenless? If not I urge you to test them first.

If you have a spare brood box then the uniting is simple, put the nuc into the top brood box with two layers of paper (pricked in two places) and let them get on.

Yes your queen is best to be out and laying in the nuc.

Rushing these things is never wise.

PH

 

[mbc]

PH did you notice " Ideally I would want all to end up in the Nuc as I don't have enough bees to work a full box. "
Not enough bees to work a full box neednt be subjected to separation by two sheets of newspaper chilling in a vast space while they struggle to chew through

 

[tonybloke]

PH did you notice " Ideally I would want all to end up in the Nuc as I don't have enough bees to work a full box. "
Not enough bees to work a full box neednt be subjected to separation by two sheets of newspaper chilling in a vast space while they struggle to chew through

why assume they'd be chilling? dummy boards/frames and some kingspan soon sort out excess space issues.

 

[Midland Beek]

You can maybe presume that bad temper = queenlessness. But you know that a test frame will put you straight. Note that is not that unusual for two queens to be present in a colony.

If it were me I would not aim to do a quick unite - there is certainly time and opportunity for a test frame. I would only unite when the new queen has been released and is laying. I would not disturb for about 10 days after release.

I would remove frames from the queenless colony and shake the bees off them. Then fit newspaper vertically in hive with drawing pins, making sure that you make starter holes. Then fill up space with frames from the queenright nuc, ie. a vertical unite.

 

[Stupeex]

A vertical Unite - I would love to see a photo of this method

 

[Poly Hive]

MB you really like making the straightforward difficult. I wonder if you have bees at all?

If the test frame shows that they are indeed queenless than a simple normal unite with paper is all that is needed.

Keep it simple for goodness sake.

PH

 

[the naked beekeeper]

I'm sure the beek wants to spend as less time as possible meddling with the Q- colony.

So taking their frames out, shaking angry bees off and then faffing with drawing pins and newspaper with angry bees going for you, gloves on, and possibly wind blowing, just seems to be way too much agro for the end result desired!!

You need not mess excessively with the Q- colony at all.