15 queens

[brooksbeefarm]

The 15 queens i got last Thursday (4/9/15) have a new home except one, and i'll make up a nuc for it here at home . Two of the queens went in queenless hives and twelve went into 5 frame  nucs from outyards that i brought home to keep an eye on. All the nucs i made up have 2 or three frames of brood and bees (with extra bees shook in) one full frame of honey and pollen, and two or three empty drawn comb frames. Once the queens start laying i'll add deep 5 frame supers of drawn comb, Question? i plan on giving frames of honey to them instead of 1 to 1 sugar syrup, would you put syrup on also? or just feed capped honey frames? Jack

[LazyBkpr]

1/1 will get entice them to start drawing out frames, while the honey will feed them.   I have found that they dont even touch the honey when being fed.. they are often quite frugal with already capped honey. The problem is that they dont typically USE the honey for drawing wax.  Perhaps, if it is decapped before going in?  I have not tried that...

[brooksbeefarm]

I thought about scratching the caps to make them use it, but they will only be using it for food and rearing  brood. I have enough drawn frames so they won't have to draw out foundation, just clean the cells for the queen to lay in and drawn supers for stores of honey. Our weather has become more stable now and the dandelions, Henbit, Dead nettle, wild plum and Redbud are in full bloom plus many other spring flowers. Just wondering if the 1 to 1 would help getting the new queens to build the hives up faster?? My older hives that i went through and made splits from were boiling over with brood and needed supers, that i didn't have with me , so by making splits should keep them from swarming until i can get back up to them with supers. One hive had empty queen cells built on the bottoms of 3 frames, i went through it trying to find the queen, but to many bees and they started letting  me know they were tired of me fooling with them. Jack

[riverbee]

"Question? i plan on giving frames of honey to them instead of 1 to 1 sugar syrup, would you put syrup on also? or just feed capped honey frames?"

jack i always give nucs or starts frames of honey, and i also feed them 1:1 until they stop taking it.  i don't feed them uncapped frames of honey up above the inner cover, i typically save these for later in the season to feed back to them when they need it or in fall, going into winter months.  that's just the way i do it.