Will this idea work?

[SixFooter]

I have a colony in a frame nuc with laying workers- very spotty pattern and drone cappings.
I've an apidea with a nicely laying queen. My idea was to put the new queen and the bees in the apidea into a frame nuc on the site of the laying worker nuc and then shake out the original nuc 100 yds away. The flying bees would return to the original site and join the new queen. Will that work or will the returning bees kill her off?

 

[bramblebee]

I also had a drone layer in a nuc
I have got rid of the layer buy shaking them out, but still have not had luck getting them to exept a cell
Although ive not waited that long
And yesterday i picked up a nice swarm no a prime but a good size
And put this in the drone laying hive (no drone layer in there at present)
Treated both parties with a misting of sugar water
And hope they unite, fingers crossed i will have a strong queen right nuc soon
Will wait and check on Monday or Tuesdays inspection

 

[Beeconcerned]

I did something similar recently, see thread here http://http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=12132
all is going well so far.

I suppose that if you wanted to be careful you could do something like I did with 2 boxes and merge the colonies with newspaper later.

 

[rook66]

I have a colony in a frame nuc with laying workers- very spotty pattern and drone cappings.
I've an apidea with a nicely laying queen. My idea was to put the new queen and the bees in the apidea into a frame nuc on the site of the laying worker nuc and then shake out the original nuc 100 yds away. The flying bees would return to the original site and join the new queen. Will that work or will the returning bees kill her off?

Be careful, laying workers can be a nightmare! Proceed as planned BUT cage the queen (butler cage) allowing plenty of room around the cage for the bees to groom and feed her. Dont shake out the bees from the laying worker colony, let them drift back slowly, this should avoid fighting. after 2/3 days dispose of the bees that are left (spray with soapy water) and go through the release procedure with the queen

 

[bramblebee]

We have already got rid of the drone layer
And I think the hive was ready for a new queen, did not destroy the last cell placed in the hive (now removed)

Any today all looks well from the out side
cant see any dead bees and they are bringing in pollen, so fingers crossed that its worked for me

But i think you need a queen cage
And the drone laying hive have been funny bugers
Taken a little while to sort them out

 

[oliver90owner]

bramblebee,

I also had a drone layer in a nuc

A drone layer normally references a queen, not workers. A DLQ could easily find her ay back to a hive if she has been out on mating flights.

DLWs are replaced quite quickly (there may be several in the hive at any one time and they may also be present in queenright colonies, too.

Don't requeen until a test frame proves there is no queen present, would have been my advice. This may take several attmpts, at weekly intervals. Unless, that is, the colony location had been 'altered' to avoid return of any queen in the colony, before shake-out.

Hope they are sorted, though.

RAB

 

[SixFooter]

I tried it and so far so good. It's at an out apiary, so I'll find out next week if it worked.

 

[bramblebee]

up date
tonight inspected my united swarm and x drone laying hive
well ive been lucky a very full nuc and ive also got eggs
so i got a mated queen in the swarm and no loss of bees
will need to move up to a hive very soon