What will happen to my queen??

[jeff33]

So I did an AS last week on my hive after finding loaded Q cups and put the queen in a nuc and let the hive raise new QC.These should be almost capped now and I am thinking of swapping around and putting the QC in my nuc and the queen back in my hive.

The thinking behind it is that if I wait until my virgin is mated and start laying it is going to be a little while and the hive may not be strong enough for the flow. Re-introducing my queen will mean back to business quicker. So the questions are as follow and as none of us are mind reading bees I will ask for likelihood:

If I have missed a couple of emergency QC after re-introducing my queen (in a cage) will the bees or queen kill them, would they supercede my queen with a new virgin or will they swarm or all of the above?

Can I introduce capped Q cells in my nuc straight away after removing queen?

Thanks

 

[mjt68]

So I did an AS last week on my hive after finding loaded Q cups and put the queen in a nuc and let the hive raise new QC.These should be almost capped now and I am thinking of swapping around and putting the QC in my nuc and the queen back in my hive.

The thinking behind it is that if I wait until my virgin is mated and start laying it is going to be a little while and the hive may not be strong enough for the flow. Re-introducing my queen will mean back to business quicker. So the questions are as follow and as none of us are mind reading bees I will ask for likelihood:

If I have missed a couple of emergency QC after re-introducing my queen (in a cage) will the bees or queen kill them, would they supercede my queen with a new virgin or will they swarm or all of the above?

Can I introduce capped Q cells in my nuc straight away after removing queen?

Thanks

A few bits don't add up for me. Why did you 'let hive raise new QC' if they had several loaded cells? Did you knock them all down or did you reduce to best open cell? How many cells are in there now?

If you have one QC and one queen then you can do as you suggest. If you've missed any cells they will swarm though! They may throw casts anyway if you didn't reduce the QCs.

A hive with little brood may do better on a flow in the short term as there is no brood to care for and more bees can forage.

 

[For want of a better word]

Something of a back to front way of Artificial Swarm.
Usual process is to leave queen on original stance with a couple of frames of brood and some frames of capped stores and pollen + a shake of young bees... placing the old brood box with the colony that moved up through the queen excluder a few yards away ..allowing flying bees to go back to old queen.

That way swarming instinct may be thwarted and the new box of bees will raise a new queen... allowing the savvy beek to take a couple of capped queen cells to incubate or make up the odd nuc.

Some may even remove one or both queens and merge the colonies for better honey production.

I have hear tell of some strange things going on in the vallies... pond dragons etc!

Yeghes da

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Taking the queen away and sticking her in a nuc is not really A/S If you had conducted a Pagden the queen and the majority of the workforce would have remained in the hive ready to carry on with their work and the QC's and nurse bees would have been happily building up a new colony. If you keep messing them around it's going to end in tears.

 

[jeff33]

Something of a back to front way of Artificial Swarm.

Agreed but being so early in the season I didn't know if the nuc would have had enough bees to do a good job at rearing queens...live and learn!

Mtj68, I reduced the started q cups so they will have used these ones.

 

[jeff33]

Taking the queen away and sticking her in a nuc is not really A/S If you had conducted a Pagden the queen and the majority of the workforce would have remained in the hive ready to carry on with their work and the QC's and nurse bees would have been happily building up a new colony. If you keep messing them around it's going to end in tears.

I know but I didn't have any spare drawn frames so I had to improvise.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

you didn't need drawn frames - foundation is better for an A/S

 

[Finman]

So I did an AS last week on my hive after finding loaded Q cups and put the queen in a nuc and let the hive raise new QC.

Thanks

Idea is to put the Queen into AS, that it continues to produce workers for main yield. When swarm draw foundations, it feels that it has swarmed.

When you had already queen cells, you could put those in cages as many as you like. But it is not clever to reproduce early swarmers. Now you get worst quality what you can imagine.

 

[Magwat]

By removing the queen to a nuc you will not have defused the urge to swarm (which is why it is so important with this method to be absolutely certain only one queen cell is left in the hive). I would think that they may well go ahead and swarm if you put the queen back in

 

[Swarm]

By removing the queen to a nuc you will not have defused the urge to swarm (which is why it is so important with this method to be absolutely certain only one queen cell is left in the hive). I would think that they may well go ahead and swarm if you put the queen back in

 

[jeff33]

This is what we call a lesson learnt...stick to basic and trialed and tested methods!!

The queenless hive is still jammed with bees so might swarm with the first virgin (although I have left only 2 QC). It is a long shot but I have 4-6 days left until emergence so could I still do the Pagden method and re-introduce my old queen in the broodless part (in a cage or not)?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I think you need to stick with what you've got or you'll only be getting into an even bigger mess.

 

[jeff33]

I think you need to stick with what you've got or you'll only be getting into an even bigger mess.

Sold!

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

In that case let's drift a bit. As @Finman almost says, early swarmers need requeening. The Q+ part is easy. Either gone or re-Q. But the Q- bit: what is the procedure to merge with a nuc after eliminating all QCs? How much time is needed and what are the chances of an early swarm on the new Q?

 

[Finman]

In that case let's drift a bit. As @Finman almost says, early swarmers need requeening. The Q+ part is easy. Either gone or re-Q. But the Q- bit: what is the procedure to merge with a nuc after eliminating all QCs? How much time is needed and what are the chances of an early swarm on the new Q?

Do not make it more difficult any more.

Only task is to cut swarming fever. Eliminating queen cells is only waste of inspiration.

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Where did you site the nuk in relation to the hive you removed the queen from?

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[TryingToLetThemBee]

Where did you site the nuk in relation to the hive you removed the queen from?

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I haven't yet, but rather than waiting for the Q- side to develop and mate a Q I do not want I was thinking of merging in a Q I do want.

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

OK, are you wanting to increase the number of hives you already have and do you have any spare gear, IE an empty hive.
Having said that, I have done an AS with a nuc box when I was short on gear, but you do have to get into the workshop fast and build a new hive fast, because they fill the nuc up fast.
So, you move the hive a few feet from the original position. Site the new hive or nuc box on the site where the hive was.
Move the queen with a couple of frames of brood and frames of honey, make sure there are no queen cells on these frames, fill the rest of the space with undrawn wax frames.
When the workers from the now relocated hive leave the hive will return to your new hive or nuc and work will now start drawing out new wax, but in a nuc they will soon run out of space and will swarm again. So if you did use a nuc to do an AS, replace it on the same site with a full size as soon as you can.

I remember when I first started out and went looking for some advice, I found the advice much more helpful than being knocked down by unhelpful snip remarks.


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[BeeJayBee]

, I have done an AS with a nuc box when I was short on gear, but you do have to get into the workshop fast and build a new hive fast, because they fill the nuc up fast.

Check out the internet for nucleus and swarm control, there are several sources.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Check out the internet for nucleus and swarm control, there are several sources.

Thanks for the nice answers but none of that goes to my question. After an AS, or a swarm, I have a Q- colony where I have to wait three weeks for it to develop a (swarmy) laying Q. My question is what is the procedure for introducing a chosen Q instead?