Would you have done it like I did?

[Beeboy]

I have a friend that I got into beekeeping. This is his first year and has had two Russian nucs transferred to boxes for about a month. He hasn't bought a veil yet so he depends on me to look on his hives. I don't mind this but he is going to have to get his own quick. Our schedules have not jived together since we put them in boxes about a month ago, as he lives about 40 minutes away. I was however able to go up here this last Friday, and those little buggers have gone to town! In fact they were out of room, and had swarm cells started in both boxes. I took the swarm cells and put them n nucs n hopes of getting two more starts.

Was this the right thing to do?

What would you have done ?

[Jen]

Let's see if I'm adept enough to give advice, or ask questions regarding your question 

If you could complete the story by letting us know what else you put into the nucs that would be great, at least for my sake anyway 

It's my understanding that a nuc will need the frame with the queen cells, a frame with eggs/larvae/capped brood, a frame of honey/nectar/pollen, and a couple of frames with preferably pulled wax.

Now? what do we do with the existing queen now that the hive has loaded queen cells into this nuc?

Thanks beeboy for letting me be a sounding board 

[Woody Roberts]

If they were supersedure cells, meaning just a few you may be ok. If their swarm cells meaning 15 or so then the bees are in swarm mode and will or already have swarmed anyway.

The only way to prevent it is to move the queen and not leave more than a couple cells in the hive. In my opinion it's very important that the cells you leave be on the same frame.

If you have cells some distance apart both queens might emerge before the first finds the second. They may fight it out or they may throw a small swarm anyway.

Swarms are a very rare issue for me but personally I would only leave one big fat cell in the hive. If it didn't work out I could recombine.

[Beeboy]

Sorry for the long delay, I just got back from church.

What I put in the nucs are my concern as these colonies aren't very old &haven't built up allot of stores.

In each nuc I put the frame with the swarm cells, (2-3 cells) then two more frames of brood. One caped & one open in various stages all the way down to eggs. Then one frame of mostly honey and pollen mixed in then a frame with nothing but Foundation. That's the best I could, with what I had to work with. Like you said Woody, if it doesn't work I can recombine so that there's not much loss if any.

There were only 2-3 cells in each colony but they were on the bottom of the frames, plus the existing Queen is laying up a storm. I am used to dealing with carnies so the difference with Russians seems to be quite allot.

Thanks Jen for chiming in!

[Woody Roberts]

Your nucs should be fine.

[Jen]

Hey Beeboy!    I think that's about what I would have done. There seems to be different opinions about leaving queen cells... how many to leave... and some leave all of them. So I like to listen to what other do.

Here's a good one for ya, when I was requeening my hives to stop the swarming issue I had, one of the hives had 29 live queen cells in it. Crazy!    It took me 4 hours to glean that hive. Whew!

[Beeboy]

Yes Jen, I like to leave all the queen cells, and let nature do whatever it would do if they were stuck in a hollow tree somewhere.

That's a lot of queen cells. I did a trap out last year, and when I would come back to check the frame of brood that I had put into the trap box, there would be about that many queen cells. They spawned several swarms off of that hive, and I would go catch them. I ended up getting about four colonies to my yard from that and I let me brother take two or three, so that was a successful time. I have not had one swarm call this year, and that has really effected my goal, but hey the bee math always works out, so I'm not worried about it.

[riverbee]

russians?
they are different than other breeds.
just my thoughts beeboy on these 2-3 swarm cells in these 2 russian hives........my thought is they became congested, and by adding extra space above would most likely have made them happy.  putting an additional deep(or medium) on may have helped rather than splitting up in nucs. or did you add extra room above?  you, okay, your friend..... would have had 2 very strong colonies if good flows continue.

seeing 2 to 3 cells in a russian hive from a nuc developed from this spring would not concern me, this would tell me they became very congested, ran out of room and/or the queens were older. how old were the queens?  first year, add more space, second year, swarm cells in nucs or other divides.

russians like to build cells of all sorts and they will be prevalent all season long. sort of 'just in case' cells. when the russian queens take off, they bust, so one needs to be well ahead of them.  give them room, well before they need it, whether it's laying space or honey storage space.

also, i do not cull cells in my russian hives, (you will be wasting your time if you do,  they just build them again), or they wind up queenless. they are fussy about their queens. in spring, divides of some sort are made, and i do like to utilize swarm cells for nucs. 

i would feed these 2 nucs beeboy, did you shake extra bees in? i will be curious about the queens in these nucs......and hope you post back an update!

as far as your friend, (with russians)......
get a veil and wear it
use a smoker when necessary........

they tend to be kinda fussy about other things............

[Beeboy]

These were in a single deep. There is a great flow on right now, so these should up fast. We got some much needed rain today with some more on the way, & I think that will keep the flow flowing. I did not shake extra bees into the nucs, I should have but didn't think of it.

Him not having a veil is partly my fault. I have been telling him for some time now that I would be making a trip to Texas, to pick up some bee stuff, and while I am down there I am going to pick up a veil for him from Dadant. My wife has a friend that her dad was a beek, and he passed away a few years ago, and I am to go down there to maybe buy some bee stuff from them, and it's not far from Dadant. I have to go down there either this weekend or next. No matter what comes up I have to go.

[Lburou]

........ I have been telling him for some time now that I would be making a trip to Texas, to pick up some bee stuff.

Try ebay for a cheap, temporary bee veil (click here to see).  Takes a couple weeks to arrive, but a good stop gap and visitor veil.

[riverbee]

"These were in a single deep. There is a great flow on right now, so these should up fast. We got some much needed rain today with some more on the way, & I think that will keep the flow flowing. I did not shake extra bees into the nucs, I should have but didn't think of it."

thanks beeboy, like woody said earlier, especially with a flow on, they should be alright, keep us posted!