mating hive

[thinkharder]

I put a spare virgin queen in a mating hive a few days ago with about 300 bees, but today I peeked in and there's may be only fifty bees. Do I take more bees from another hive or can she survive with this few bees until the mating is done?

[Eaglerock]

300 to fifty...what happened... how long ago did you put her in and did they swarm?

[thinkharder]

I put her in on Saturday afternoon. She was already emerged from her cell but still in the queen cage.

The weather here is supposed to be good for several days and I didn't want her to miss her opportunity to fly, so I took a risk and put the hive into the yard yesterday morning. I hoped the young queen would be able to keep most of the bees with her, but this turned out not to be the case. So I need to know if shaking more bees in there will be of use. I can hope the younger bees will stick with her, but perhaps I'll lose the older bees. So I'm checking in with the forum to see if anyone has advice or experience with this.

Intend to put her on top of a working hive as soon as she's mated (queen excluder between her and older hive, newspaper in between as well at first, and the top bees will have their own entrance.).

[Eaglerock]

forgive me for asking again, but where did the other bees go to?

[thinkharder]

They probably flew back to the other hives in the yard. The mating hive is at least a hundred feet away and sitting in a sheltered spot by the garage. I'm a back yard beekeeper. I don't have another yard to put these bees in.

[RayMarler]

I'd add a frame of sealed brood to the virgin, and shake a frame young bees in too.

When you join with the established hive, better settup a double excluder setup, with 3/8" wood border between them, or use 2 excluders, one on each side of a super box. Queens can get to each other thru a single excluder. Make sure you have an upper entrance, as you've said.

[thinkharder]

I can't add sealed brood since the mating hive is smaller than Langstroth equipment. It's modeled after a styrene mini mating hive which uses top bars.

http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/kirchhain.html

The bees have candy inside (laced with lemon oil and peppermint--they seem to love it). The bees also have a small chunk of pollen substitute and a plate of water nearby. There's wax on the bars as a guide for starting comb.

From what I read, mini mating hives only need about 300 bees and a virgin queen. My research indicated shaking bees from open brood was the best bet for getting bees that would stay with the young queen. I did that today. There's been a big thunderstorm since, but the bees, when I checked just beforehand, were fanning within the hive, I suppose to let everyone know where to return to if they went out the bottom entrance. I sprayed heavily with lemon oil scented water before shaking the bees into the hive. I hope that will confuse them long enough to bond with the few left in there from the previous shake.

The young queen is still in there, looking very healthy, and the bees ate a lot of the candy already. I think I managed to get a good 150 to 200 to stay with her this time. I hope the inclement weather will keep them with her long enough to bond.

[thinkharder]

Oh, and thanks for the info on the double queen excluder. I'll definitely do that if it turns out the other virgin queens in the other hives mate successfully. :-)

[RayMarler]

Sounds like it's going to work out fine. Good luck :D

[TwT]

a frame of sealed brood and a frame of young brood wilth bee's would get you a lot of young bee's, if I was going to make just one nuc and wanted a quick build up I would swap location with the original hive with the nuc that way the returning foragers from the large hive will help build up the nuc quicker.

[thinkharder]

This is a mini mating nuc modeled after a styrene hive that uses top bars. A regular frame with brood will not fit.

I can't check the mini today to see if more bees stayed. The weather has turned cold. So much for the predictions of good weather.