New Queen

[RobboWA]

Hi Beekeepers,

I apologies for the short notice and lack of knowledge. My neighbor has given me a queen bee as they weren't in a position to use her. My hive is young and does not need the queen replaced yet. I have raided my hive about 4-6 weeks ago (1 super). My thoughts were to make a new nuc with 2 brood and one honey from my current hive so I don't waste the queen and get a chance to build up. I live in South West WA and my concerns are that we are late in the season. My current hive is very strong and I plan to feed them during the Winter as well. Thoughts on whether I should progress?

[Oldbeavo]

Depends how much brood is in your hive. If you are willing to feed then you could use one frame of brood with nurse bees and some bees from the super and they will survive if you feed them.
Only use a 4 frame nuc to put them in, one brood, one honey and pollen and one drawn empty frame, if you don't have one another honey would be OK.
I would put a piece of polystyrene in to replace the 4th frame so they have less room to keep warm.
If you make the nuc I would shift the nuc 2 or 3 km away for a few days to keep the field bees in the nuc. My opinion only.

[RobboWA]

Cheers Oldbeavo,

Appreciate the advice! What are your thoughts on instead of moving the nuc away could you place it in the position of the mother hive?

[Oldbeavo]

All of the field bees of the main hive will leave the main hive and up where the nuc is. That is what they are used to doing very day, fly out and return to X position in the area.
I have turned the main hive around and moved it backwards a bit and put the nuc in its place to collect more field bees. When you have enough then shut the nuc and move it away.
Moving is successful for us and the effort to make a nuc, moving is a small thing to enhance success.
If you leave it in hive position you may end up with ty field bees and weaken the main hive, not good at this time of year.

[RobboWA]

Cheers, will try it in the morning. Thanks for the info!