Exciting day! A week later than expected, but still hugely welcome, I've received two Amm queens from Colonsay. (They've only been in the post since this Monday - delay was at the Colonsay end.)
With perfect comic timing, as the postie walked up the path with them, the rain started. Due to continue all day, heavily. I swithered about for a bit hoping it'd ease, but it remained cool & wet.
Preparations for the new queens had gone a little haywire due to the extra week's wait. One queen has a little queenless intro nuc ready & waiting, as planned, just two frames, ready to be reunited to its parent colony once the Colonsay queen is settled & laying. By some miracle they've kept themselves warm & fended off the wasps.
But the other intro nuc had to be rescued. I'm now hoping to directly introduce the second Colonsay queen to a strong colony which is on brood & a half, but the weather today just wasn't good enough to go through it searching for a queen. Forecast tomorrow is vaguely hopeful, but not great.
Meanwhile I've just removed a drone layer from a quite full & very frustrated MiniPlus (RIP Aai: emerged 2013, headed lots of adventures...). Would I be better to introduce the 2nd Colonsay queen to the MP tonight, let her settle, & then introduce her to the big colony in maybe a week or so, picking a really good day for weather, or should I hang on till tomorrow & hope for a chance to de-queen the large host colony then?
I don't whether it's bad for a queen to be swapped from colony to colony twice, in such a short time, & I don't know how much an extra day in a cage would diminish her chances with the big, confident currently queenright colony. I'm hoping for advice from people with more experience with queens!
I'd kind of like to go for the MP option because (a) they are so desperate for a functioning queen and (b) I could do with getting some work done this week..... But I want to give both Colonsay queens the very best chance I can.