I have a colony with Queen 1 since last year. My friend split it for a nominal fee of 4 USD.
During that process (late December), the Queen 1 was moved into his nuke box with 2 or 3 brood frames (out of 8).
The split was successful. Now the new queen (Queen 2) is doing great. Her colony is very strong.
The Queen 1 was kept in the nuke box for 3-4 weeks and then moved to an empty hive I got last year. Colony strength doesn't seem to have improved neither in his nuke box, nor in the new hive. When I opened the hive yesterday, I could see some drones. 4-5 of them escaped.
Is it a sign that the colony needs a better queen? By the way, I have kept the Queen gate closed. Is there any problem with that?
Hard for me to understand some of your description. Did you leave the hive open for that new queen to mate? And another thing was you said, drones escaped, so what. They need to get out to mate with queens. That is all they are good for, so if you confine them in a hive, they are good for nothing. To me, there is nothing wrong with drones, if you have worker brood too.
Entrance of the colony with new queen has always been open. She mated and the hive strength is great.
But, the problem I have noticed is with the old queen's (who was shifted to a new box around 2 months ago) colony. I have barely seen an improvement in its strength. Is it possible that she has not been laying enough eggs to increase the strength even in this spring?
She may have been put in too big a box for too few brood frames and nurse bees. I would put them in just a big enough box for them with little extra space. She will only lay enough eggs for the nurse bees to care for.
You are a genius, man. Only 3 frames have combs in the 8-frame chamber. But I doubt have a nuke box. How can I put them in a smaller place?
You either make follower boards to replace the empty frames and it will act as a smaller box. When they grow in size, you start pulling the boards and replace it with a frame. Or you get/make a smaller box. That will help them get off to a better faster start. Also if you feed them sugar syrup, they will draw out comb quicker, and if they are in a dearth, it will be the only way they draw comb.
The bees know if the queen is bad and will supercede her if needed.