New 'Nuc' to old position?

[bjosephd]

What would happen if a nuc, now in a full size brood were put in the old position of a hive that was just moved?

Would it be fabulously staffed with a ton of flying bees? And they all carry on as usual?

Or would it be carnage?

 

[drex]

In spring I regularly will swap position of a weak hive with a stronger colony with no problem. Helps equalise out the apiary and makes management easier. However, bear in mind that a small colony is more easily robbed, so appropriate sized entrance

 

[bjosephd]

It's a requeening operation really, but donmt really want to open the offending hive. My plan was to move the offending hive to bleed off flying bees before opening so it would be mostly nurse/house/nonflying bees... then brainwave struck... why not put the new queen in situ ready to receiving all them flying bees!

I can then done out brood from the original box, squish the queen, and use all those nurse bees to raise a queen from different stock!

Love it when a plan comes together!

 

[bjosephd]

The 'nuc' is very small though.

But will all those flying bees just be happy to find a (any) laying queen and brood, and the queen and her current staff happy to greet many bees returning heavy with forage?

 

[colinc]

So the colony you are bleeding fliers from is grumpy? If so, when you move them into your nuc/small colony that colony will be grumpy until the nice queens progeny works through, sounds ok to me. Workers to build up the nuc quicker and make it easier to requeen the grumpy hive.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[bjosephd]

So the colony you are bleeding fliers from is grumpy? If so, when you move them into your nuc/small colony that colony will be grumpy until the nice queens progeny works through, sounds ok to me. Workers to build up the nuc quicker and make it easier to requeen the grumpy hive.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Indeed... however, my understanding is that it aint just genetics... just under new management and new pheromones can change their temperament pretty much overnight.

 

[bjosephd]

Crikey... so having not opened up the grumpy box for a while, as they are nasty and seemed to be superseding, I found rather a lot hatched queen cells and then closed up think... what now?!

Maybe they superseded, maybe they swarmed, maybe there are loads of virgins running around fighting, didn't spot the old queen but it was only a cursory look.

Now thinking not a great hive to do original idea with as what if flying virgins still relicate back to original position?

Half thinking to move the box to a new position ALL on top of an excluder... I don't really want ANY of these queens anyway!

 

[MartinL]

Crikey... so having not opened up the grumpy box for a while, as they are nasty and seemed to be superseding, I found rather a lot hatched queen cells and then closed up think... what now?

didn't spot the old queen

Why are you surprised?
Old Queen probably left with 1/2 your angry bees in the first swarm.

Maybe they superseded, maybe they swarmed,!

maybe they have done several times?

Now thinking not a great hive to do original idea with as what if flying virgins still relocate back to original position?

Give them a few days of warm weather and try it.
One question,
where is the nuc now?

 

[bjosephd]

The nuc is sat up at the top of the orchard. They seem fine, just a shame this new queen can't really her lay-on big time.

Well I'll have a proper look sooner or later and see what's really going on in the grumpy hive.

 

[MartinL]

What about dropping a few frames of capped brood into the nuc?

 

[bjosephd]

What about dropping a few frames of capped brood into the nuc?

Agree