I have a hunch my bees are getting ready to swarm. I haven't been able to get in to do a full inspection in the past 2 weeks, but the bees have been bearding more and more the last week or so, even when it's cool out. I may be wrong and kind of hope I am, but if I discover queen cells when I do my next inspection (in the next couple of days) is it too late to do a split? I have a 5 frame nuc box ready if I do need to do so, but I'm not sure if this is too late in the season for a new colony to fill up enough stores for a long cold Vermont winter. Any advice? If it is too late for a split, what should I do?
If you hurry you may still have time. Michael Palmer I believe said 1st of August at the latest for Vermont. The key is you want 3 or so brood cycles before they shut down for the winter, so if you give them mated queens they will get through that quicker.
Thank you for your quick response! I'll be sure to get right out to the hive after work today to do a full inspection. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. If I do find queen cells and decide I need to do a split, from what I understand, I need to take the frame with the existing queen, along with 2 frames with both brood and food (and bees!) and place those 3 frames in the nuc with 2 empty frames. Next possibly dumb question- when I got my nuc this spring, they had duct taped hardware cloth over the top of the nuc for ventilation, but the nuc also has a solid cover. Do I need to duct tape the hardware cloth back on, or was that only for transportation purposes? Do I just use the solid top, no hardware cloth? Is it okay to place the newly filled nuc right next to my existing hive, or is it better to distance it from the existing hive? Sorry for all the questions. This is my first year and I didn't expect the possiblity of needing to do a split already. Perhaps I won't need to, just want to be prepared!
Michael puts the new queen/queen cell in the nuc, but then again he is making his nucs from non-producing hives so he does not want to keep the queens anyway. He also only uses 4 frame nucs (actually 2 4-frame nucs in 1 deep) and places them on top of a full colony for winter. You also need to make sure they have 3 frames worth of capped honey across the 4 frames. And don't feed after October first and any feed that is needed should be fed all at once.
I don't know where abouts you are in Vermont, but Michael Palmer is from St. Albans. He is a really nice guy and you might want to talk directly to him if you can and not completely rely on my memory of his method.
You don't need the hardware cloth on top. That is used just for transportation so the nuc doesn't overheat.
One more question, if I go into the hive this afternoon and discover swarm cells (and would one swarm cell indicate that a swarm is going to happen, or does it need to be several?) and I want to make a split but can't find the queen, what would Plan B be, to avoid a swarm? Remove a frame of honey/pollen or brood and replace it with an empty frame? What would I do with the frame I removed?