Jon
queens from apideas
by
, 03-04-2014 at 09:28 PM (14329 Views)
I have 4 queens overwintered in apideas.
Two of them had dwindled to the point where a couple of cold nights would have done for them.
I caged both the queens and made up a 2 frame nuc with each.
A frame of brood and a frame of stores and pollen in a poly nuc filled out with poly dummy frames.
Luckily I have a couple of colonies strong enough to take a frame of brood and bees from.
I left them closed up for 24 hours after making them up on Tuesday and let the bees out to fly on Wednesday.
they are in the same apiary the bees came from so a few will drift back to the colonies of origin.
The queens were alive in the cages on Wednesday so fingers crossed they will be out and accepted by now.
This is a bit earlier than I would have liked but it would be a shame to lose the queens at this stage.
The remaining two apideas are better. One is a double and is strong and the other has enough bees to last a week or two at least.