[Idahobeek]

I posted a week or so back about one of my hives that is booming trying to supersede their queen. She is laying solid frames of brood and is over five frames ahead of my other hive started at the same time. I rotated the brood boxes, added a super and they tore down the cells.

Today was 10 days later, did another inspection and found three more queen cups with larva in them, not yet capped. So, I just pulled the queen, two frames of brood, one of honey and pollen, and frame of foundation and an internal feeder and stuck them in a nuc, filled the feeder and added a pollen patty.

They want a new queen, fine. I am not going to argue with them. My wife on the other hand wasn't so sure and wanted to smash the queen larva instead of doing a split. It took me some talking to convince her that killing queen cells is a good way to end up queenless.

We weren't really planning on having three hives the first year. But, that's beekeeping I guess. I just hope she continues doing the job she has been doing and this nuc has time to build to strength before winter.

Agree? Disagree? Opinions? Advice?

 

[beedeetee]

You did what I probably would have done. Eventually they would have won and it might have been September when you didn't have a lot of alternatives.

The queen probably won't do the same job in the nuc though because she doesn't have the support staff that she had. I always noticed that her brood laying slowed. I don't know what kind of brood you used to make up the nuc, but I find that taking capped brood makes the biggest difference in the nuc.

If you made the nuc strong enough (shook in enough bees) and gave them 3 frames of capped brood, they can move to a single in a couple of weeks and then they are on their way. With eggs, and young larva this will be slowed and with 2 frames with brood this will be slowed even more.