For weight reasons I am eliminating my deep boxes. I thought the perfect time to do this would be now cuz I thought they'd be empty, well I was wrong.
So far the one hive I checked has some honey and pollen left over from last year, and all stages of brood from this year, not packed with brood, but maybe the 1/2 of both sides of three or four frames in the deeps. And there are still a ton of bees, too, I thought after winter I'd only have a few but it looks like the hive has doubled its size over winter !!!
What I did was took the whole deep off the hive and moved it to the other side of the yard with all the bees in it, except the queen, I kept her in the origional hive. I figure some of the bees will fly back to the other hive with the queen, but some will stay to raise the brood, right?
Anyway I guess my question is will the split now raise its own queen, or do I have to buy a queen for it, and to tell you the truth I dont even want it cuz it is a deep, can I sell it as a nuc or something or does a nuc have to have a queen?
So far the one hive I checked has some honey and pollen left over from last year, and all stages of brood from this year, not packed with brood, but maybe the 1/2 of both sides of three or four frames in the deeps. And there are still a ton of bees, too, I thought after winter I'd only have a few but it looks like the hive has doubled its size over winter !!!
What I did was took the whole deep off the hive and moved it to the other side of the yard with all the bees in it, except the queen, I kept her in the origional hive. I figure some of the bees will fly back to the other hive with the queen, but some will stay to raise the brood, right?
Anyway I guess my question is will the split now raise its own queen, or do I have to buy a queen for it, and to tell you the truth I dont even want it cuz it is a deep, can I sell it as a nuc or something or does a nuc have to have a queen?