I suppose that the ideal situations for getting queens accepted are:
- a queenless stock of young bees (can be recently queenless and still with the means to make a replacement)
- a long-queenless stock that knows it is unable to make another one
- introduction into a smaller stock rather than a large one, especially one of dubious temper
... and that the subsequent uniting with a larger stock goes better if:
- the new queen has already established a brood nest
- the new queen is surrounded by nurse bees that have accepted her
- the nuc was originally created from the stock to which it is being returned
- there isn't a big disturbance around the time the queen meets new workers, and afterwards for a while
So your MiniPlus and a newly created nuc should work but for slightly different reasons. The uniting of the MiniPlus with the larger stock is one thing that might prove a little tricky. If you place it over newspaper on top of the bigger colony the MP frames are quite likely to continue to be used for brood or honey.
Letting a newly created nuc settle for a while is to bleed fliers (older workers) back home and to let the stock come to terms with its newly queenless state. You need to have enough young bees in it to start with, and I reckon an hour is about the right time to let it settle without wholesale loss of bees back home. For the same reason I would not block in the nucleus immediately it is made up.
Murray's preference of a large introduction cage into a big colony sorts many of these issues and requires fewer visits, except, of course, the 'big colony not long queenless' issue. Seems to work for him though.
I don't think I'm that experienced on this (though I've made most of the mistakes) and constructive criticism would be good .....
Bookmarks