When Will I See Mated Queens Back In Nucs?

[Jen]

Here's my timeline.

March 31 ~ Hive swarmed

April 5 ~  Pulled 8 frames with queen cells, made 8 nucs

April 11 ~ No queen cells in any of the 8 nucs, all torn down and clean. Queens must be out with boyfriends

April 19 ~ No queens back yet, shouldn't it be anytime now?

[apisbees]

Jen clarification "torn down" hole riped in the sides virgin queen killed while still in the cell. the cell cap is opened and the virgin queen has emerged.

[Jen]

Apis, there was no cells At All! I took very careful note of each queen cell as I carefully placed them into each nuc, plus one more frame of brood. Scooted them to the center so the queen cell was in the middle and protected. When I went back in to peek 11 days later to see if they emerged, there was no sign that a queen cell had been in there at all. Nada, Zilch, Clean. It's like the queens emerged and the bees cleaned up after her right away. Weird

[apisbees]

I downloaded a excel file with the approximate dates that you provided, give it a few more days. The bees do clear off the cells as they interfere with the cells below them. I assume you have excel and can open the attached file. if not let me Know and I will figure something else out.
Change of plans excel file was to large so attached a PDF instead.

[Jen]

Well that is the cat's meow  Thank you Apis

[Jen]

I have observed that the bees are back filling the two frames I have in each nuc. When the queen is finished with the mating week and returns home for good, she won't have anywhere to start laying. And I have no pulled medium frames due to Rat over the winter. I didn't have the for thought to put a frame of foundation in the nuc for the bees to pull while waiting for queens return :\

[Dunkel]

Jen, maybe you could take out a frame and let them pull out a fresh one.  I have enough trouble trying to manage nucs, I don't know how they stay ahead of those mini nucs. I guess a lot of shuffling of equipment.

[apisbees]

Do you only have 2 frames in the 5 frame nucs? if so put foundation in to fill it the bees will draw wax if the queen needs a place to lay.

[Jen]

Dunkel, yah this is going to put me to the nuc test for sure. My objective is to have the nucs full of bees, brood and eggs by the end of May, and ready for sale.

Apis, Yes I've been follow your lead. Each nuc has two frames. Presently, all the brood that came with the frames has hatched, and the bees are back filling the cells.

Okay, However, your first instructions were to put 2 frames of brood, one with a queen cell, into each of the nuc boxes. Then when the queen returned, to fill the nuc boxes with frames of brood from the other hives. I do have the resources for that.

[iddee]

Jen, if you thought Apis meant leave 3 empty spaces in a 5 frame nuc, you TOTALLY misunderstood. Him and I both have told you several times to ALWAYS put 5 frames in a 5 frame hive. NEVER leave an empty space. He just said make 2 of them brood, and add brood when she begins laying while removing 2 non-brood frames.

Get the boxes filled with frames immediately, if it isn't already too late.

[Jen]

Wow!

Here is the post from Apis that I TOTALLY misunderstood:


Re: First Swarm For Me
« Reply #13 on: April 01, 2016, 09:08:12 AM »

"Iddee doesn't agree with me on this but I like to pick and save the biggest cells they are the ones the bees have provided the most attention to. I only leave on good cell to hatch. I do not see any advantage to having the queens fight. Do to the fact that you need to allow the 2 weeks for the queen to emerge and start laying, you do not need to make the nucs up to full strength now. 2 frames of brood with a queen cell on one of them and honey and pollen and a bit of syrup.  Once you see the queen is mated and laying then frames of brood from other colonies can be added. If the queen is not present then combine with a queen right nuc. Start by thinking mating nucs to get the queens mated and laying. This will allow the other hives to continue to rear brood while the queens mate and will allow for swarm control by removing bees and brood from those hives in 2 weeks."

Apis is working right along with me on this new nuc venture, not once has he lost his temper.

Cut from center of post above "Do to the fact that you need to allow the 2 weeks for the queen to emerge and start laying, you do not need to make the nucs up to full strength now. 2 frames of brood with a queen cell on one of them and honey and pollen and a bit of syrup"

This could be easily misconstrued by any of us, we all read differently!

[apisbees]

Sorry for the misunderstanding Jen. What Iddee said.
Just look at what you will find when not filling all the blank space with comb, Look at the threads of of omnimirage. The bees will fill empty Spaces in little time. But on the bright side it is never to late to fix it.
This is what you get when you only put 2 frames in a 4 frame nuc.

pulled a frame to take to a trap out but due to location and timing the bees were exterminated. Would have taken a month to seal up all the bee escape areas. they were entering through a staked rock foundation. they were within a foot of the door they always use and in 5 days the grand children were coming for a week and one had anaphylaxis reaction bee sting allergies. took it back home and set it off to the side and ignored it. I Know better, or should know better.

[Jen]

No apologies neccessary Apis, you're doing just fine 

I know all about how bees fill the empty spaces, have dealt and learned from that. Nucs are new to me so I thought this was a different system or something. My nucs are just across the lawn from my sliding door. Since I made up the nucs on April 5, I've been peeking under the lids this whole time watching and learning. These pics are what is happening in the nucs. You can see that there is no wonky comb in them, any of them. This is what all 8 of them look like inside. The bees are just sitting in there with nothing to do. I'll be putting frames of foundation in them today anyway. But they are obviously not in wax making mode or they would have been building comb... so I dunno

[apisbees]

Once the queen is back in starting to lay they will consume the syrup as they feed the brood.

[Jen]

Okay. And queens should be back anytime now, so I don't see the need to waste time filling these nucs with new foundation just to prevent wonky comb, which isn't happening anyway. I would much rather wait for the queens then fill the nucs with nice brood and bees from my hives.

[apisbees]

You will but you will have to put the combs where you remove them from so you just swap them out.

[Jen]

I only want two hives. Right now I have 4. In the pic, the hive to the left has 2 full mediums. I want to empty out that hive and put the brood frames into the nucs.

My plan is to leave the two empty comb frames in the nucs, in the center, so the queen can lay. Then per nuc, add 3 frames of brood from hive that I want to empty. In my mind, once the queen is laying, I can show the buyer the new eggs/larvae, that she is a laying queen.
 

[LazyBkpr]

Do you have undrawn frames? If you dont, you should get some. Drawn frames are part of the price of the nuc.
   Put the undrawn frames into your hives after taking some drawn frames out. Put the drawn frames into the nucs. You could even put an undrawn frame in each nuc, and feed them to get them drawing those frames.
   Nucs make beautiful worker comb, while a hive "may" make drone comb.  Always put all the frames into a hive, even if they are just foundation. It will keep the bees busy drawing comb as long as you have a good flow OR are feeding. Two frames of brood meant two frames of brood and three frames of "other"   Meaning empty, perhaps a frame of honey with the drawn comb or empty frames.
   With only two frames and nothing else to draw or store in, they will certainly backfill those two drawn frames with nectar and pollen. I am actually uncertain why they have not already drawn new comb of their own accord from the lid, unless you have little or no flow at the moment?