Hi guys, I have two of my Doubles go Queenless after Swarming and there is no sign of eggs or a Virgin Queen. I have quite a few hived swarms covering four frames with a laying queen.
Can I simply take this small nuc and place it in the double.
Is there are special process I need to do????
I was going to use plenty of smoke and then just put the frames with the queen and brood etc straight in?????????????yes/no
No, I do not recommend it. If it is a laying worker hive, then it will have lots of bees that think they are the queen and they will try to kill a real queen.
If the hives are next to each other. What you can do is take that hive away from its original location., as far as possible, 100 feet if possible. Take it apart and shake the bees off of all the frames and all of the hive parts. The bees will return to the original location and go into the closest hives. The idea is that the laying workers are too heavy to fly and the bees in the hive will not allow a foreign queen to enter. You can then add the honey frames to the queen right hive. You do not want to add the drone brood to that hive. The bees will just have to remove them at this time of year and they do not need the drain on supplies that any drones that hatch will cause.
If the hives are spaced apart, close up the laying worker hive at night and move it next to the other hive and place a branch in front of the entrance to cause them to reorient to the new location and then take it apart.
Jim