Wrong choice of Real Estate

[Dolo]

An interesting situation. All is well in our small apiary and we have had a bait hive waiting for any passing swarm looking for a new location.

Today we visited for the first time for a week and found that we do have new tenants, not in the bait hive but in an old Nuc that had some used frames in. We were really surprised and found it is fairly packed in there. This can't carry on for long, so we need to put a spare National we have in stock in its place.

Our question is can we:
1) shut the Nuc and remove it from the stand?
2) put the spare National brood exactly in its place?
3) switch the frames with new tenants from the Nuc to the National brood chamber?
4) remove the empty Nuc from the scene entirely?
5) stand back and hope the foragers who now find an alien entrance as they return, find their way in, meet their sisters and all the bees remain?

There is a lot of advice on the net as to how to transfer the bees in a new Nuc into their permanent hive, but recently delvered bees would not be acclimatised to their local geography as our new tenants are.

An interesting problem for us and any advice welcome.

 

[The Poot]

Sounds like a plan to me.

 

[pargyle]

An interesting situation. All is well in our small apiary and we have had a bait hive waiting for any passing swarm looking for a new location.

Today we visited for the first time for a week and found that we do have new tenants, not in the bait hive but in an old Nuc that had some used frames in. We were really surprised and found it is fairly packed in there. This can't carry on for long, so we need to put a spare National we have in stock in its place.

Our question is can we:
1) shut the Nuc and remove it from the stand?
2) put the spare National brood exactly in its place?
3) switch the frames with new tenants from the Nuc to the National brood chamber?
4) remove the empty Nuc from the scene entirely?
5) stand back and hope the foragers who now find an alien entrance as they return, find their way in, meet their sisters and all the bees remain?

There is a lot of advice on the net as to how to transfer the bees in a new Nuc into their permanent hive, but recently delvered bees would not be acclimatised to their local geography as our new tenants are.

An interesting problem for us and any advice welcome.

That will work ....should not be a problem .. the foragers will return to where the nuc was, they will find the entrance ... I'd leave the entrance block out for the first few hours so there's plenty of pheremones coming out .., the entrance should point in the same direction as the Nuc entrance and if your hive has a mesh floor block off the space beneath the entrance so they can't undershoot otherwise you could find a clump of bees hanging under the mesh floor.

 

[Dolo]

Good additional advice about the mesh floor. Thank you.

 

[Dolo]

Sounds like a plan to me.

Thank's for the confirmation.....we shall see tomorrow...

 

[Erichalfbee]

All good. No need to shut the nuc up just move it aside

 

[Sutty]

If it's on or very close to the original site they will find it.
Good point re OMF.

 

[Dolo]

All good. No need to shut the nuc up just move it aside

All good. No need to shut the nuc up just move it aside

Many thanks for your help too.

 

[Dolo]

If it's on or very close to the original site they will find it.
Good point re OMF.

That's good to hear, obviously the whole hive shape they return to will be different, which was our concern.

 

[Boston Bees]

Just a standard transfer of bees from a nuc to a hive. No issues.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Just a standard transfer of bees from a nuc to a hive. No issues.

Yes, but unfortunately..

There is a lot of advice on the net as to how to transfer the bees in a new Nuc

and a lot of it is just long winded magic tricks when all you need to do is dump them in a new box