Worldwide Beekeeping

Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: rober on May 05, 2020, 11:25:34 am

Title: sound feasible?
Post by: rober on May 05, 2020, 11:25:34 am

I've mentioned before that my M.D. hired me tend his hives. for some reason he ordered a nuc w/o telling me & if he declines it he'd lose a hefty deposit. he has hive that is queenless. what I plant to do is run all bees out of the top box, then put the nuc in that box & do a newspaper combine. sound feasible or would that be putting that queen at risk? as an alternative I could do the newspaper combine & put that queen in a release cage.

Title: Re: sound feasible?
Post by: iddee on May 05, 2020, 12:30:45 pm

Everything in life carries some risk, but the first way you describe would be what I would do. It's a minimal risk, and the simplest, easiest way.

Title: Re: sound feasible?
Post by: Bakersdozen on May 05, 2020, 01:32:48 pm

Some of us local beekeepers were talking about this very subject last night, online.   If the queen has eggs, brood, etc.  you want to put her and her colony on top of the queenless colony with newspaper.

Title: Re: sound feasible?
Post by: rober on May 05, 2020, 01:43:02 pm

well alrighty then...that's what I'll do. of course that's AFTER I go thru both boxes & make sure they haven't made any queen cells.

Title: Re: sound feasible?
Post by: rober on June 01, 2020, 08:50:44 am

well i'm happy to report that I've successfully combined 3 nucs with queenless hives. I did thoroughly check each hive for queen cells & gave them each a frame with some brood on it first. I was getting ready to do a 4th with a nuc i'd started with frames with swarm cells. I checked & there was a laying queen. 2 days later I checked them before locking them in for the move & found that they had absconded.

Title: Re: sound feasible?
Post by: Zweefer on June 01, 2020, 09:10:15 am

Sorry to hear that rober.
Congratulations on the other successes though. Thanks for keeping us updated.

Title: Re: sound feasible?
Post by: Bakersdozen on June 01, 2020, 10:51:22 am

Quote from: rober on June 01, 2020, 08:50:44 am

well i'm happy to report that I've successfully combined 3 nucs with queenless hives. I did thoroughly check each hive for queen cells & gave them each a frame with some brood on it first. I was getting ready to do a 4th with a nuc i'd started with frames with swarm cells. I checked & there was a laying queen. 2 days later I checked them before locking them in for the move & found that they had absconded.

Bummer!  This has been a very strange year honey bee wise.  A lot of weather related abnormalities.