Was just wondering when you make up your cell builder for grafting queens can you take brood and nurse bees from several different hives and put them in a nuc without them fighting.
making up a cell builder
Was just wondering when you make up your cell builder for grafting queens can you take brood and nurse bees from several different hives and put them in a nuc without them fighting.
Re: making up a cell builder
Yes.
Re: making up a cell builder
Assuming you arent working with a queenright/cloake board setup. The more the merrier, dump em in. The more turmoil the better.
"Ve are too soon olt und too late schmart."- A nameless German philosopher
Re: making up a cell builder
Once you are done with them, where are you going to put them?
Re: making up a cell builder
Give them a queen, combine them with another hive via newspaper, divide them into nucs, etc...Originally Posted by canoemaker
Or dump them on the ground in the yard and let them find somewhere to be...
Re: making up a cell builder
Just leave a cell with them and you got yourself a nuc.
"Ve are too soon olt und too late schmart."- A nameless German philosopher
Re: making up a cell builder
I take all my nurse bees from a single strong hive and return them to the same hive the following day after I put the cells in a finisher hive.
Re: making up a cell builder
...you can do almost anything that gets you lots.of.young queenless bees with fresh stored pollen, stored food, and incoming food. You can confine the bees (ive never done this), you can feed the bees (to insure incoming food). If I feed, I put crystalized honey on the top bars according to conditions and populations.
My current faviorite configuration is 2 five fame boxes. In the bottom box I put undrawn foundationless frames and there is a screened bottom for.plenty of ventilation. Th top box.gets.capped brood, some uncaooed brood, honey, and fresh pollen. You can put more capped brood in the bottom box to emerge and prolong the life of the builder.
I needed a good nuc for a public location and a cell builder...and I dont really have time to.do.any of this....let.alone feed a cell builder daily. Instead I chose a nice 2 box hive. I moved one box with the queen to be the nuc, and left the queenless half at the original location with lots of.foragers. after 2 days, I moved a few frames with stores, brood, and queen cells to another nuc to raise a queen. The rest (and shaken nurse bees) left in the 2 story five frame starter...plenty of.flow and plenty of foragers.
Deknow
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