Author Topic: Question by Jen about nucs  (Read 1192 times)

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Offline Perry

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Question by Jen about nucs
« on: July 24, 2017, 06:20:07 am »
(Jen is having trouble posting so I am doing this for her for now)

Here's her question:

Nuc #1 queenless for more than two weeks maybe more. No laying workers yet. Added a frame with eggs about 5 days ago, the bees are making 1 queen cell, looks about 1/3 - 1/2 finished. Not too many Bees but friendly.



Nuc #2 queenless with laying workers. Lots more bees and friendly.



I would like for these two nucs to merge and make one nuc with many more bees. But don't know if a newspaper combine would be the right thing to do.

Plus, I have one chance with one queen cell.

If I combine them now... would the extra bees destroy the half build queen cell... Then I would be back to square one with no queen... But I could then add more eggs... scratching head... Or, maybe I should shake them both out and put away the equipment.
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Offline rober

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Re: Question by Jen about nucs
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2017, 08:05:17 am »
you already have laying workers so you have nothing to lose so i'd wait until the queen cell hatches before doing anything. why put that nuc at more risk. after that queen is out  i'd put the nuc with the queen cell in the stronger nuc's location & shake the bees out of the laying workers hive.

Offline robo

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Re: Question by Jen about nucs
« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2017, 12:24:34 pm »
Not enough bees to produce a quality queen, let alone over take a laying worker colony no matter what method is used to merge them.  I'd merge them all with a full sized queen right colony and then take a split off the full colony in a week.

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Offline Jen

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Re: Question by Jen about nucs
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2017, 12:45:09 pm »
Thanks Perry for helping post my question  ;) 8)
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Offline apisbees

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Re: Question by Jen about nucs
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2017, 03:55:45 pm »
Agree with Robo. also the age of the bees are not that to raise a good queen. young bees make the best royal jelly.
If you really want to have a nuc then take a split. I would pull frames from a good colony to make a new nuc and shake the bees off the failed nuc frames and replace them in the hive.
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Offline Jen

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Re: Question by Jen about nucs
« Reply #5 on: July 25, 2017, 04:34:11 pm »
I like all of these options. So I went out to take another peek at the queen cell so I could make my decision. Yep! The cell that had the egg and royal jelly in it is all dried up, more bees have died off. So the merging with other stronger colonies seems more work than I think is necessary at this point. I really don't NEED another nuc. I'll shake them all out and retrieve my equipment of which I really need right now.

This post has taught me that old bees are not suitable for making good queens. Young bees and a stronger colony have more royal jelly to make good queens.

Thanks guys! This post gave me some good learning stuff  ;) 8)
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