extra queen

[Beekeepers0619]

We just got a new shipment of bees yesterday and the place we got them from sent us the wrong ones.They sent Italian and we had ordered Russian ,so to make up for it they are sending me a russian queen.We have a hive that has been set up a little over a month. My question is, would it be ok to take a frame or two from my established hive to go in a new one with my russian queen?

[power napper]

Yes--Just make sure that when you take a frame of brood from "A" to put into "B" that you do not take the queen from "A"--experience --I have made that mistake!

[PA Pete]

I would probably move the Italian Queen to the Nuc, and put the Russian Queen in the hive. But that's just me. If you set up the Nuc and Queen two days before the new Q is set to arrive, the hive will realize it is Queenless and the introduction process should go more quickly.

Take this with a grain of salt as I'm a 1+ year beek smile.gif

Good luck!

-Pete

[Beekeepers0619]

Thanks for the info!! Appreciate it*

[AndrewSchwab]

Bad luck to make a split before the "live queen" is in your hands. Would wait until queen is in your hands before making a split.

[Bill Ruble]

Interesting you started this thread. Just today I got 2 extra queens myself and had just started 12 new packages 2 weeks ago. The packages are doing fine, but no brood has hatched yet and it will be at least a week yet before they do. That means that all the bees in there are getting older and there are not really enough bees left to do a split in my openion. There are about 5 frames of solid brood in the hives.

What I did in my case was to put on a queen excluder and put the new queens above the older one and put one frame of brood with her above. At least that way there should be enough warmth for all the brood and i can also keep the new queen. Later, when the hive builds up enough, I will do the split.

any comments on this are welcome because I am new at this myself. Well had them 30 years ago, but have forgotten lots. Please advise if you think i need to do something different. It is not too late yet.
Bill

[Michael Bush]

Two frames of brood might be more reliable. I've seen them abandon one if it's chilly, but seldom seen them abandon two.

I usually set up a queen bank. I could do that in a two frame nuc with a shim (3/4" thick the size of the nuc, like a small imirie shim without the entrance hole). The shim gives ou the clearance to put the cages on top of the top bars. A frame of open brood and a frame of honey and shake in a couple more frames of bees (to allow for drift).