Moving frame of eggs and brood to different hive

Rurification · May 10, 2015, 02:13:42 PM

I know this is a dumb question and one that's probably been asked a lot before, but I can't find it using the search feature...

When you're moving a frame of eggs/brood from a stronger hive to a weaker hive, do you need to brush the nurse bees off first? Or do you just pick it up, make sure the queen isn't on it and move it over, bees 'n' all, to the new hive?

Thanks!

don2 · May 10, 2015, 03:09:56 PM

Brush the bees off. If you are moving it only a few feet you don't have to worry about the brood chilling. If very far wrap it in a blanket. d2

Kathyp · May 10, 2015, 04:43:46 PM

you don't have to brush the nurse bees off. they will transfer fine. What you do depends on numbers in the donor hive and the one you are boosting.

deknow · May 10, 2015, 04:51:41 PM

There are reasons to brush them off, and reasons not to....it really depends on circumstances and goals.

The best reason to brush them off is of you are not confident finding the queen...but this may be at cross purpose with other factors.

rookie2531 · May 10, 2015, 06:06:58 PM

I would never feel comfortable brushing a queen ( if I wasn't sure she wasn't there). But if you do keep all nurse bees on to help boost a weak nuc for instance, a tip came from someone to me. If it is a weak nuc then put your donor frames in a separate nuc until right before dusk. That way if there are foragers on donor frame, they will go home and they won't go get reinforcements to rob that weak nuc.

OldMech · May 10, 2015, 08:08:07 PM

If I dont lknow where the quen is, I give the frame a shake over the original hive. An easy shake.. JUST hard enough to dislodge SOME of the bees... If the queen is there she is usually the first to fall back into the original hive. At that point, it is also easier to look the frame over for the queen with less bees on it..
If you KNOW where the queen is, or you are confident she is not on the frame, there is no reason to remove the nurse bees. They will not fight when you put them into the hive. If your purpose is to strengthen a hive, taking a frame of eggs, larvae, and bees from a good strong hive is the way to go.
Even better, is if you keep a few nucs to take resources from.. you have spare queens, and you will have frames that NEED to be removed to keep the nucs from swarming, so you never have to steal anything from your production hives.

don2 · May 10, 2015, 10:09:07 PM

So I am going to say this could be one of the do's and don'ts of bee keeping. As some of you know, if you have been following one of my threads, I have a nuc from a split that I suspected was left with out a queen. I have moved a frame of brood per week for two weeks. I did not take the bees with the frame, reason, the nuc is strong. Really can't call it a nuc. It is a 10 frame medium with 7 frames of bees. The first frame of brood I gave it was full of brood on both sides. The next frame was from the original moved part from the split that had the queen, it was left with less bees than the one left in the original location. I did not want to weaken it anymore. So that is my reason for not taking the bees with the frame. Now, If I am going to move a frame to boost a hive, yes I would leave the bees on. Didn't mean to make it sound like it was best to brush the bees off. Hope I didn't through anyone of track. The bees in the queen less hive took right to the brood. d2

Rurification · May 11, 2015, 09:33:01 AM

Thanks for all the replies. They all make sense, given different scenarios and hive needs.

deknow · May 12, 2015, 10:35:35 AM

the only problem with finding the queen first, is that you will not be looking for the other queen. ...depending on what y

BeeMaster2 · May 12, 2015, 07:50:57 PM

If you just want the field bees off of the frame, I have found that if I place the frame in an empty nuc/box, in about a half hour or even less all of the field bees will be back at the main hive.
Jim

BeeMcq · May 12, 2015, 08:27:47 PM

Brush the bees of the frame of brood back into the hive, put on a queen excluder.
Put the brood frames in a box above the excluder. Give nurse bees time to move up though the excluder to take care of the brood. The queen is now below the excuder so you dont have to worry about the queen.
Also you are only transferring brood and nurse bees.

biggraham610 · May 12, 2015, 10:48:49 PM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on May 12, 2015, 07:50:57 PM
If you just want the field bees off of the frame, I have found that if I place the frame in an empty nuc/box, in about a half hour or even less all of the field bees will be back at the main hive.
Jim

Me too. That's how I do it. G