How to go from castle to 4 nucs?
How do I go from a queen castle to nucs without losing existing field force? I have queen castle with (4) 2 frame sections. Some of the sections are pretty weak, I plan on transferring to my swarm trap nucs (dark camo colors), adding frames and a feeder to make up the 4 winter nucs. thinking I would also shake some bees into the box while making them up what keeps the bees from just going home?. The plan was to move the nucs 3 miles down the road but the sections are small and weak, the field bees are critical in numbers so I would do it at night, how soon do the bees return to their old house and the original bees from being too confused to find their queen?
Second Idea was:
• put another Queen castle with only a center divider on top of the existing.
• move the center two sections to new Castle and block the two holes for this side.
• Add frames of bees and feeder to each section (each hive donates a couple).
am I overthinking this?
Any ideas would be helpful. Weather here in Boring Oregon is 78 and partial to full sun. Flow is over, we do not expect rain until September.
“Why do we fall, sir? So that we might learn to pick ourselves up” Alfred Pennyworth Batman Begins (2005)
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