[montanabee]

so last week I had a booming hive with tons of brood, or so I thought. I found a couple of queen cells and presumed that they were swarm cells. I think that was wrong or that the hive had already swarmed on me. I moved them over to a hive that was queenless for some other unknown reason. Now the hive that received the queen cells is doing better(saw the queen today). But the one that I stole them from has NO new brood cells. i think i really screwed myself on this one. I think I should just stop moving things around and just walk away. but I would like to save this one from just petering out. Without new brood and no real nurse bees left, can I get a new queen and hope for the best or what now? crap.

 

[NasalSponge]

I did that once many many years ago, trust me because of this experience you won't ever do it again. You could put a frame of freshly laid eggs from your other hive in there and let them make a new queen. Just make sure you don't transfer the queen with the eggs.

 

[Beeslave]

If last week your hive had a ton of capped brood this week there should be 2 tons of nurse bees. Giving them a caged queen will work fine as long as there is not a virgin that hatched and is in there.

 

[alpha6]

Wait...back up a minute. Were there any queen cells left in the hive or did you take them all? If you left some there is the real possibility that you have a virgin queen in your original hive.

 

[montanabee]

i don't think that I left any queen cells,but now I am second guessing myself. There did not appear to be any brood or cells. perhaps this was two weeks ago?? there are a lot of bees, but not much going on in the way of brood. I don't feel as though the other hive can really sacrifice losing any brood at this point since the queen is pretty new and isn't doing a dynamite job yet. she is there and is laying a decent pattern, but not going full force yet. If I wait too long, then the old hive will be toast. ugg. how do I know or guess if there is a virgin queen and how long do I wait before I just get a new one? I do have one other hive. Do you all recommend that I take a frame of brood from that one and just see how it goes?
come to think of it, I found the queen in the other hive, but I also found a queen cell in the middle of a frame. she isn't the best laying queen ever, so are they getting ready to supersede her or swarm, or what? since she actually exists, should I just let her do her thing and take that queen cell over to the failing hive?

 

[Joseph Clemens]

If you swap an almost empty frame from the problem hive with a frame containing young larva and eggs from the queenright hive, then it shouldn't have much of a negative impact, but could have a profound positive impact on the queenless hive. If they have a viable virgin they will simply raise the brood, but if they are truly queenless, they will likely build some queen cells and attempt to raise themselves a queen.