Honey bound Nuc

[pistolpete]

Well, it seems I blew it once again.   I set up a Nuc this spring with my best queen from last year.  I used the Nuc as a donor to strengthen my other hives and Nucs.  All told in May and June I pulled about 6 frames of brood from them.   Then about mid July I decided to let them build up to full strength.  They filled out the first box quickly enough, so I added a second about two weeks ago.   Lately I noticed that they don't seem to be gaining strength like they should.  So today I did an inspection.

Gasp:  the queen has less than 3 frames to lay brood in, hemmed in by honey on all sides.   No wonder the hive can't build up.   Now what?  I moved a partially drawn frame next to the brood, but all my drawn frames are tied up in honey production.   My extractor is undergoing repairs.  Time is running out, since the eggs laid in the next two weeks will become winter bees.

The best solution I can come up with is: force the bees out of the second box (they have 3 frames full of honey up there) provide them with 3 blank frames next to the brood and hope they draw them fast. 
I am not a fan of radical brood nest manipulation, but it seems that a checker boarding may be in order.   I'm not that worried about winter stores, since I will have plenty of drawn frames after the honey harvest, which they will happily fill with syrup.

If anyone has any bright ideas I'd like to hear them. 

[Perry]

Why not swap out a frame or two of the honey with a frame or two of ready to hatch capped brood (less bees) from one of your other hives? Once the bees hatch out the queen will have space to lay.

[LazyBkpr]

Agree with Perry.. You can even shake some nurse bees from the nuc into another hive if you are worried about the population overload when the frame of capped emerges.

   I have nucs building and am feeding to get them to draw the rest of the foundation. It is going slowly, but it IS going.
   I have supers on that I extracted earlier. The bees are busy refilling them at this time.. If I had to I would steal two or three of those frames that were less than a third full of nectar, and I would not be beyond rinsing, shaking or spinning if I had to.

[Riverrat]

I would put the new frame in the middle of the brood nest. This time of year you should be fine.  I had 2 nucs honey bound one I put in 10 fram equipment the other I added another nuc box on top

[pistolpete]

well, I went back into this hive to try and sort things out.   Last time I was in there they had 3 full frames of honey in the second box and I checker boarded those with foundation.   When I went back in they had drawn out that foundation and were starting to fill it.   So I took those 3 freshly drawn frames and checker boarded them into the brood nest.  I moved 3 frames of honey up to the second box. 

 Hopefully they re arrange the nectar that I stuck in the middle of the brood nest and get some brood production happening.   Kind of felt bad for the queen, because the 3 and a half frames she had in there were nearly all capped brood, with only a few cells open for laying.  This is a queen that had 12 frames of brood going last summer.