So I made a nuc by taking the queen bee from a booming hive along with a couple of frames that were heavy with eggs, and uncapped/uncapped brood, plus a frame of honey and pollen.
The main hive is still going strong. I broke up the brood nest last month to prevent swarming and I must have done a good job because I only saw a few empty queen cells while removing the frames for the nuc. I assume that the worker bees will make a new queen from one of the many open brood cells in the main hive. I would like to harvest a few capped queen cells for use in a mating nuc that I recently built. Since I recently took their queen, I want to leave them alone as long as possible so they can do their thing without disturbance. The question is, how long to I have to wait before I go back in the hive to look for capped queen cells? Looking at some queen bee life cycle charts; it looks like I should wait about 2 weeks. Does this about sound right?
The main hive is still going strong. I broke up the brood nest last month to prevent swarming and I must have done a good job because I only saw a few empty queen cells while removing the frames for the nuc. I assume that the worker bees will make a new queen from one of the many open brood cells in the main hive. I would like to harvest a few capped queen cells for use in a mating nuc that I recently built. Since I recently took their queen, I want to leave them alone as long as possible so they can do their thing without disturbance. The question is, how long to I have to wait before I go back in the hive to look for capped queen cells? Looking at some queen bee life cycle charts; it looks like I should wait about 2 weeks. Does this about sound right?