Installed a nuc -possibly honeybound queen.

Bee Happy · April 21, 2010, 02:12:50 PM

I installed the nuc yesterday which I split a month ago (march 14th). The nuc was bursting at the seams with bees, and crammed with honey. I saw no sign of eggs or developing larvae. I moved them into a hive with more room and some drawn comb. The drawn comb was from an apparently healthy cut out I did last year and mistakenly drove them away.
Here's the situation/question.

I saw no eggs in the nuc, but the bees seemed content, no noise came from them other than a happy hive.
When I moved the nuc into a hive they showed some distinct entrance/scent fanning - just as they did when I installed nucs where I was certain there were queens.
My question is in 2 parts: 1)how often should I check for eggs and 2)how soon if I still see no eggs or larvae should I get another frame of brood in there?

David LaFerney · April 21, 2010, 09:35:36 PM

If there is a queen and you go ahead and give them a frame of eggs/brood there won't be any harm done. If they're queenless, then sooner would be better than later. Your queen might not have made it back from mating.

Bee Happy · April 21, 2010, 09:48:30 PM

thanks, especially for the "no harm done" - I was kind of stuck for what to do. They even acted queenright enough for the stragglers from the nuc to move into the larger hive. More brood is just more brood.

iddee · April 21, 2010, 09:58:54 PM

Remove the bees from the frame of brood before adding it.

Bee Happy · April 21, 2010, 10:19:54 PM

Iddee, is there an air temperature I need to be aware of? - the new hive is 10 miles away from my house.

Kathyp · April 21, 2010, 10:40:10 PM

iddee ? you are the first i have seen advise removal of bees from brood frame (i think). i can see doing that for a trap out. why do it for adding brood to a hive except to keep from weakening the donor hive? i ask because i have never had a problem with nurse bees on a frame of brood.

iddee · April 21, 2010, 11:46:59 PM

There's the difference. I have had the nurse bees kill a queen. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I only leave the bees on if I am adding to a queenless hive. He suspects there is a queen there.

Kathyp · April 22, 2010, 12:15:55 AM

ahhh. guess i have been lucky.

Grid · April 22, 2010, 10:35:42 AM

I remove the bees from the brood frames to be absolutely sure I don't accidentally transfer my queen.

Bee Happy · May 08, 2010, 06:22:12 PM

I thought I should update this, with thanks for the advice. The weather didn't allow for me to get a frame of open brood, we had rain, considerable wind, cloudy with wind, wind with cloudy, rain, rain, windy... etc.. My wife did some checking as well, and the people who sold us our original bees also had a queen available to buy.
We took her down to our other location and placed the cage in the hive, with an eye for signs of immediate rejection yesterday, I placed her in the hive for about 20 minutes with the cork still in place in case I had to rescue her; looked OK, they seemed to be trying to feed her with no displays of aggression towards her, as if they'd been waiting for a mated queen to return to them. I pulled the cork and checked again in a hour, and it was about the same, no aggression, just feeding through the cage.
I'll check back tomorrow to see if they're getting the candy out and to look for any change in attitude.

Bee Happy · May 09, 2010, 10:52:42 PM

May 9 - went to check the installed queen, the acceptance still looks very good, she's still getting feeding attention through the cage, and some workers are eating through the candy timer. I was tempted for a second to just release her; but I figure that she needs to be released in the appropriate timing, to let her scent get good and permeated through, and for her to feel anchored there.