A QC, laying queen and a virgin!

[beepro]

Hi, All!


After 3 day of pouring rains, I finally have the time to do a hive inspection on one of the nuc hives.  It has been more
than 2 weeks since I've done a hive check.   This time I found one developing QC rather large, a small virgin running around on
the left side frame and yes, the old laying queen all in the same nuc hive.   What a surprise!

Thinking that it is the right time to make more queens, I put a half cut off plastic QE in between the 2 nuc hives. 
The one on top is where the developing QC and laying queen are at.  Since they are making another QC and
trying to get rid of the old queen now, they will not tear down this QC.   Tomorrow I will inject some extra RJ
into this cell as I don't want dinky queen anymore this time.   As for the virgin in the bottom nuc, she will have a chance to
take her mating flights when the weather is warmer, maybe in mid-March.   It is still cold in the mid-50s in the day time.

So instead of making a split, I bunched them altogether with extra drawn frames and honey frames added with this division.  The
very bottom empty nuc box is where the temp controlled 100 watt ceramic light is in.   Cranking along!

[BeeMaster2]

Beepro,
Was that queen cell capped. If you have a newly hatched queen in a Nuc, there is a very good chance that the capped queen cells were already killed.
Are you injecting RJ into capped cells?
Jim

[Oldbeavo]

I will stand corrected but a virgin queen should mate within a limited time, is the virgin a supercede queen that has not mated, therefore not laying and so the bees have decided to rear another queen. Is the virgin an older queen that didn't mate due to bad weather or no drones.
If successful they may bump off both queens if they consider the new queen is good enough.
Some time we use the philosophy that the bees know what they are doing and so we put it back together, write $^* on the lid and check it next time.

[Acebird]

As for the virgin in the bottom nuc, she will have a chance to
take her mating flights when the weather is warmer, maybe in mid-March.

You expect this queen to be fruitful?  I would expect it to be a dud.  You might get lucky on the developing cell but even that might be a crap shoot.

[beepro]

This QC is now dead.  It got torn down when I put it with the old laying queen in the top nuc box.  Before, the QC is
an open cell in development that I want to inject some RJ into it.    Never inject RJ into a cap cell because at this stage it
will not benefit the grub that much since it will stop eating in a matter of 2-3 days.    This is why it is better to give extra RJ while
the QC is still open.

Here is what I did for a change.  Leave the old laying queen in the top nuc box.  Leave the virgin in the bottom box.   The box that
the virgin is in has a QE between the old laying queen.   This way the top and bottom box can share hive resources.   The part that I
changed was the bottom left side next to the virgin that now has a new laying queen put in.   She is separated by a half cut laundry net bag sharing
the same nuc box with the virgin and has her own separate hive entrance too.   But her bees are not allow to intermingle with the old laying
queen in the top box.  Now 3 queens, one old, one new and a virgin sharing 2 nuc boxes.   Fun, fun, fun!

Yesterday hive check still has the virgin in there.   The new laying queen's original nuc box has 6 developing QCs now.  These cells once stabilized will
receive some RJ injected into them prior to being cap.   Another RJ injecting trial still on going.   Wonder what these QCs will look like after they're cap.

[beepro]

An update:

So the tiny virgin got mated and laying as of 3 days ago.    Even though she is small she's very famous among her
worker bees.   Seeing this I put her back into the 6 developing QCs' nuc hive.   If these cells do not emerge then the
mated virgin has a chance to take over this hive.   If she's a good laying queen then I'm sure the workers will tear down
these Q-cells.   It is a test anyway to see if she is a worthy laying queen.    This will answer my question of whether or not a
tiny queen that was not too well fed can lead the hive.   Is she going to be superseded later on in the season?  My perspective may be
change after this little queen test.

After the tiny mated virgin queen got moved to her own nuc hive, now the old laying queen and the new laying queen got merged into
one big colony.   I took out the QE to unite them all with the old queen in the top box and new laying queen in the bottom box.   Without a
QE, how will they function as a big strong colony?    Will they keep both or just keep the new laying queen?     I was hoping that they would keep
the new laying queen though.   This queen has the local genetics with yellow bad Italians color that I like.    Maybe after the rains I can do a hive check to
see what is the situation.

[eltalia]

@beepro
"after the rains I can do a hive check to
see what is the situation."

Do that BP... my money is on the usual happening, the
queen moving down will be eliminated.
IF I tried something like this here in our season one of
two outcomes would prevail.
A swarm ensues.
Total war breaks out internally as bees - following
phereomone - clash.

Me, I would have pulled the excluder a few hours after
removing the queen in that super.

Bill

[beepro]

The intention is to have them eliminate one queen and keep the stronger one.  And so they did.  They got rid of the queen that I don't want and kept the Italian queen mated earlier in Jan.  Not sure where the other queen went on a hive check yesterday.  Now I don't have to squish the queen that I don't want to keep. 

During the entire process I did not see many fighting going on.  Maybe there isn't that many workers to pick a fight this time.

[eltalia]

The intention is to have them eliminate one queen and keep
the stronger one.

Weeeel... you could not know that the newbie is stronger, yet.

During the entire process I did not see many fighting going on. 
Maybe there isn't that many workers to pick a fight this time.

Or way dizzy still

Bill

[Acebird]

Weeeel... you could not know that the newbie is stronger, yet.

He didn't say he did know.  He is letting the bees decide.

[eltalia]

Weeeel... you could not know that the newbie is stronger, yet.

He didn't say he did know.  He is letting the bees decide.

You ever take a minute to think that maybe outside of NY
"And so they did." sez he is saying he did know, did know
the bees kept the stronger?
Done with that, then think on how he could possibly know
when there is no first cycle completed..huh?

Bill

[beepro]

Ugh, I did not know.  Every time there is a test run I have no idea what is the final outcome.  That is why all our
beekeeping experience is different.   Who knows which queen they decided to keep. 

Now I know only after the fact.   That is why beekeeping is so interesting with so many different variation you will
never get bored with it.   Since she is laying strong now, I will take out the remaining cap brood frames with the mites
inside the cap brood cells into another nuc hive.  This will concentrate the mites into one hive while sparing the other nearby nuc hives.
The end result should be a few surviving hives with less mites in them.   So what to do with the nuc hive with the most concentrated mites?