queen ran out of steam

[rickyd20]

I believe the queen in my strong hive seems to have ran out of sperm, and was removed by the bees. The most recent frame in the hive was basically a slab of brood on a 14x12 frame, but the bottom corners of the frame was spotty drone brood.

The hive is definitely queenless as when I gave them eggs, they made emergency cells.

I have another 2 hives, one which is fairly strong, on 8 14x12 frames, and a nuc on 5 frames. I just want to know what the best course of action is.

I could either pinch the queen from the nuc, and introduce her to the queenless one, then combine the 2 weaker colonies together, which would result in 2 strong hives. Problem is the risk of introducing a new queen to a strong hive, which could really screw everything up if she is rejected.

The other option is to combine the nuc with the queenless hive. I suppose this is safer way of queen introduction.

Obviously I could just let them make a new queen, but I would prefer to not have that hive broodless for so long.

What option do you think would be best? Also open to other ideas if anyone has some.

 

[Finman]

.
When the hive makes emergency cells, they accept very easily the queen.
When emergency cells are capped after three days, offer your nuc queen to the bees. You may too take away the frame, where they have queen cells, but my experience is that the hive accept very well a new queen when queen cells are capped.

To join nuc's bees and big hive is good alternative too. Then you have only one uniting problem.

To join 2 smaller hives, which remember their own queens, have bigger risk to join.
Weathers affects much on the luck of joining.

 

[rickyd20]

.
When the hive makes emergency cells, they accept very easily the queen.
When emergency cells are capped after three days, offer your nuc queen to the bees. You may too take away the frame, where they have queen cells, but my experience is that the hive accept very well a new queen when queen cells are capped.

To join nuc's bees and big hive is good alternative too. Then you have only one uniting problem.

To join 2 smaller hives, which remember their own queens, have bigger risk to join.
Weathers affects much on the luck of joining.

Thank you Finman for the good advice.
I'll go ahead and pinch her in a few days then and just introduce her in the cage.