Hi, first post, 5 year beekeeper.
I took a split from one of my colonies back in April, and it's been something of an ongoing disaster, whereby I would add more bees to support a weak split and then a new queen and then more bees etc.
I won't go over all the horrible little mishaps that got me to this point but as of this morning I have a mated queen present a in a NUC, there are two frames of emerging brood , two frames overloaded with stores.
In total there are maybe 80 nurse bees and 50 or so mature bees foraging and guarding. But this weak colony is being very heavily robbed by bees from my other hives and in a last desperate attempt to save them I've closed the entrance trapping about 50+ raiders inside. My thinking here is that a few days of confinement should give the emerging brood some time to come through (although I have concerns about the lack of nurse bees), and hopefully the queen can work some magic on the raiders and switch their loyalty.
There are plenty of stores present, honey, nectar and pollen.
What do you think ? Is this a sensible plan? Shuld I be trying something else to save them?
Thanks