Q: How to recombine a queenless nuc?

[chrissv]

Hi,
My hive swarmed, and I pulled off some frames with swarm cells (plus honey and brood) into a nuc to make a second queen. That nuc didn't take, so I want to combine it back into a queenright hive.

When I pulled the frames, I replaced the missing frames with drawn frames which the original hive is using. I know about newspaper combines for whole hives, but I don't need a new brood box layer for this hive (it already has two).

What's the best way I can combine these 5 frames and bees into another hive? I heard I could spray the bees with sugar water, and smoke the heck out of the hive, and they won't fight too much.

Thanks - Steven

[RayMarler]

If your nuc is queenless but not laying workers, then you can just remove 5 frames from the big hive and slip in the frames from the nuc. If it's queenless without laying workers then there will be no, or very little, fighting. I only worry about using newspaper if both hives/nucs are queenright. If one is queenless and no laying workers then I just join them on the fly with no problems.