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I am pretty sure I have a queenless hive that swarmed on May 3rd and again on the 13th. I caught the first swarm but not the small secondary one. It has a lot of bees, tons of honey and no eggs or brood. Currently it's 2 deeps and a super, almost full.
According to the Bush Bee Math I should have a laying queen by 4 weeks after the primary swarm. That's the 31st for this one.
When they swarmed I made up a nuc with a couple queen cells and it has done well. I put it in a full deep earlier in the week and the queen is laying eggs.
I know I could buy a new queen or add some eggs and brood and let them make their own.
I might like to try to combine the successful nuc hive with the queenless one. How do I go about that? Newspaper with the deep from the nuc hive on top of the 2 deeps in the queenless?
What options am I not thinking about?
Or maybe just catch that queen and introduce her? Then let the nuc hive do their thing making a new queen. If I had my druthers, I would like the original hive to succeed. It seems to be making a surplus of honey right now and I wouldn't mind getting some.
Thanks for the help. This forum is great!
According to the Bush Bee Math I should have a laying queen by 4 weeks after the primary swarm. That's the 31st for this one.
When they swarmed I made up a nuc with a couple queen cells and it has done well. I put it in a full deep earlier in the week and the queen is laying eggs.
I know I could buy a new queen or add some eggs and brood and let them make their own.
I might like to try to combine the successful nuc hive with the queenless one. How do I go about that? Newspaper with the deep from the nuc hive on top of the 2 deeps in the queenless?
What options am I not thinking about?
Or maybe just catch that queen and introduce her? Then let the nuc hive do their thing making a new queen. If I had my druthers, I would like the original hive to succeed. It seems to be making a surplus of honey right now and I wouldn't mind getting some.
Thanks for the help. This forum is great!