Hive 1 (nuc with queen from the kamikaze AS). Did a quick check without smoke. Queen laying. Eggs, larvare and brood. 1 charged QC. With this hive having 2 frames of bees, what can be done because if she swarms. Can an AS be done with so few bees and use both in 2 apideas. Tricky one this seeing as this queen was ready to swarm before i fecked it up, now she wants to swarm again but if i do an AS, theres very few flying bees. Ill leave that one for the more experienced beeks to answer.
Firstly - One CHARGED queen cell ... you saw a grub in there ? You say the queen is laying and there is BIAS - how much BIAS is there ? I would be surprised now that the queen is in swarm mode again but it looks a bit like it .. Do an AS (Properly) .. just use another Nuc - You have nothing to lose - if she swarms you've not got a lot left anyway.You can always add a frame of brood from Hive 2 if they need a bit more to build them up.
Hive 2.( over winterred caste) Spoted the marked Q, shes laying great. On 7 frames of brood,larvae and eggs and rest of cells have been filled. Put a super on top but also found an egg in a sort of QC(looked sort of a QC but not 100% on it)so shes looking like shes going into swarm mode. Also knocked down 2 empty QCs along witn the one with egg in it. In hindsight i should have left it and marked the frame but was thinking it might be just a worker cell that looked differnt to the others. Bees where great to work with.
A classic swarm cell is long and hangs away from the frame ... might just be one of those bits of random comb. Knocking down the empty queen cells will only promote them to building more if they are going to swarm. Leave them for a few days and look again .. if more queen cells built you will have to AS.
One thing i should mentiona about this hive, seeing as i have 4 inch insulation covering this hive, the brood nest is right against the wall of hive on both sides of frame(less on wall side of frame). Since ive added a super, the insulation is covering super now instead of brood box and i wont be able to make up more untill the wknd. Will this effect the brood much?
Should not hurt to do without a hive bonnet on the brood box at this time of the year... have you got a slab of insulation under the roof on top of the super because that is where it will do most good ?
Hive 3. (One left with 2 capped QCs). Quick look at frame with the QCs., both hatched!! Still lots of bees but where more agitated than the hive2.
Probably got at least one virgin in here ... leave them to get on with it .. you will either have a queen in there or not ..you will only tell when you start to see eggs. If they are agitated could be because you have an unmated queen in there .. or a virgin out on a mating flight. As you still have lots of bees in there it doesn't sound like you have lost any castes.
Hive 4. Took just over a 50p piece size of eggs from hive 2 and squashed in to a frame to see if theyll make a QC, if not, theres a virgin queen in there.
Leave it for a few days and check if they are building QC's and then you will know how the land lies ... not much else you can do.
Hive5. 1 frame of bees taken from hive 3 in last inspection with QC for back up. Didnt open but seen some flying bees.
Leave it be then ...
Well ... it's not an easy situation to diagnose so that's my best shot but I'll bow to anyone who thinks there is anything better that you can do at this moment in time. As I've said earlier - you are in damage limitation territory so yoru plan has to be to see where you have strongly laying queens as the season progresses and start thinking about combining the weaker hives with them to get down to a level that you can manage and that will stand some chance of getting through winter.
