When to reunite

[herefordshirehoney]

I did an artificial swarm a few weeks ago (well technical it was pretty much a split as didn't bother moving hive side to side to equalise numbers as this queen is a very strong layer).

Old queen 2013 queen brought aug last year is upto 5 frames of brood already and bees have backfilled all other frames with OSR, will be supering tomorrow as i'm extracting tomorrow (not enough equipment to super today).


With the old colony I choose the best queencell I thought and removed the rest a week later from the AS. Last weekend I checked and it had emerged although couldn't find her which was about the 8 days mark from capping. I've put clearer boards on this colony this morning to take 3 OSR supers off but was going to leave this alone till next weekend apart from the extraction tomorrow.

I'm also tempted to put in a test frame to confirm this next week so I can make sure I have a backup plan because of the time it takes to raise a new queen.

My question is when do I reunite with the original bees, effective am I right in thinking ideally after 2 full brood cycles (so early/mid july assuming the queen gets mated). Basically I want a summer honey crop and in order to get my best chance at this I need to numbers back up!

 

[oliver90owner]

First of all, are you keeping the new queen? If so, she needs to be assessed first.

There are alternative strategies like retaining one queen in a nuc and transferring capped brood to the main colony, after re-uniting, on the basis that two queens will likely lay more than one. Remember that emerged brood is no good for foraging duties for about three weeks.

 

[herefordshirehoney]

First of all, are you keeping the new queen? If so, she needs to be assessed first.

There are alternative strategies like retaining one queen in a nuc and transferring capped brood to the main colony, after re-uniting, on the basis that two queens will likely lay more than one. Remember that emerged brood is no good for foraging duties for about three weeks.

Probably not as 1st gen buckfast but will put her in a cage with 8 attendants as backup plan, as the queen that I AS was £40 and lays like the cappers.

Time wise probably just enough time to get up to speed though, good point about transferring brood though forgetting completely about that!

 

[Hebeegeebee]

A buckfast cross might give you some temper issues, so I would be inclined to wait as see how her offspring's colony behaves - assuming the swarmed queen produces well-behaved bees.

 

[herefordshirehoney]

A buckfast cross might give you some temper issues, so I would be inclined to wait as see how her offspring's colony behaves - assuming the swarmed queen produces well-behaved bees.

Judging on what one colony was like last year I would tend to agree as the gene pool seemed to local mongrels. I have been told generation 2/3 does get better though. I already requeen every year so seems silly to waste her as she is a good little layer.