I had a booming hive early in the season and did an artificial swarm removing the old queen. The old hive built QC's but I never saw evidence of a mated queen returning. I now have a hive with lots of spotty drone cells scattered about. I think I have laying workers and not a drone laying queen. I added a frame of brood every week for 4 weeks but that did not correct he problem. At this point I am tired of adding resources to the hive. Without brood, they have bringing in quite a bit of nectar, so I was thinking I would not worry about fixing the problem while the flow was on.
I am in building mode at this point. I have 1 really strong hive, 1 moderately strong/growing hive and 5 small nucs that are still getting started.
I thought about putting a double screen on top of the LW hive and then put one of the stronger nucs on top of that to teach them what a real queen and worker brood should smell like. Leave them like that for a few weeks and then combine if the LW's stop laying.
Otherwise, I was thinking of just shaking out the LW hive 100 yards away and taking down the original stack to let the bees drift into other colonies.
Will shaking out the LW hive hurt my existing nucs? 2 nucs have recently installed queens that should be laying any day, 1 has a QC ready to hatch. I would love to shake out the LW hive at this point but don't want to do anything to harm the small nucs that I have started. Perhaps I should make sure all of the nucs have queens that are laying strong and then shake out?
I appreciate any thoughts.
I am in building mode at this point. I have 1 really strong hive, 1 moderately strong/growing hive and 5 small nucs that are still getting started.
I thought about putting a double screen on top of the LW hive and then put one of the stronger nucs on top of that to teach them what a real queen and worker brood should smell like. Leave them like that for a few weeks and then combine if the LW's stop laying.
Otherwise, I was thinking of just shaking out the LW hive 100 yards away and taking down the original stack to let the bees drift into other colonies.
Will shaking out the LW hive hurt my existing nucs? 2 nucs have recently installed queens that should be laying any day, 1 has a QC ready to hatch. I would love to shake out the LW hive at this point but don't want to do anything to harm the small nucs that I have started. Perhaps I should make sure all of the nucs have queens that are laying strong and then shake out?
I appreciate any thoughts.