[Rlahaise]

I banked a queen back in June and split her hive, due to almost constant rain all summer I was adding a frame of bees/eggs weekly and one split finally produced a mated and laying queen in the past week..

The second split had multiple QC’s followed by a properly opened QC and the sides torn out of others .. this happened 3 times since June..

Yesterday I inspected and found only one QC with half a dozen eggs scattered around the bottom but no other cells and no indication of laying worker eggs elsewhere.

Due to the lateness of the season I’m giving up on getting this hive queenright and strong enough to survive a Canadian winter so I plan to combine it with the banked queen...

My thought is to place the QR hive where the split was, place the split on top facing backwards for a couple of days then shake out whatever bees remain and hopefully this will discourage any possibility of the worker who laid eggs in the QC from competing with the queen..

Any thoughts on my plan?

 

[crofter]

I think this would be a good time to use a screened board between the two colonies for a while. The funky splits bees are getting old by this time so they have little to offer. I would consider them next to worthless in comparison to the new laying queen. Take every means to protect her and have very little concern for the bees in the other split.

Risk / benefit analysis!

 

[Gray Goose]

I banked a queen back in June and split her hive, due to almost constant rain all summer I was adding a frame of bees/eggs weekly and one split finally produced a mated and laying queen in the past week..

The second split had multiple QC’s followed by a properly opened QC and the sides torn out of others .. this happened 3 times since June..

Yesterday I inspected and found only one QC with half a dozen eggs scattered around the bottom but no other cells and no indication of laying worker eggs elsewhere.

Due to the lateness of the season I’m giving up on getting this hive queenright and strong enough to survive a Canadian winter so I plan to combine it with the banked queen...

My thought is to place the QR hive where the split was, place the split on top facing backwards for a couple of days then shake out whatever bees remain and hopefully this will discourage any possibility of the worker who laid eggs in the QC from competing with the queen..

Any thoughts on my plan?

define queen bank? a queen rite hive with a cadged queen banked in it? OR a wad of bees with a cadged queen?

If the first you could split the "bank" hive give the banked queen to the 1/2 with out a queen. make the best of the know good bees first.
in a few days add in 1 frame at a time from the "queenless" laying worker/ unknown hive.
Small adds to a bigger queen rite hive will have the least effect. like every 3 days 1 frame should not mess up the queen rite part. Add in the funny bees slowly to a know good setup.

 

[Rlahaise]

By banked I meant that I put her in a 5 frame nuke with some bees/brood in case my splits failed, to prevent swarming I pulled frames of eggs/nurse bees. from this nuke to try to prevent laying workers and to give the split eggs for queen generation.

I did move the queenright hive to a 10 frame box placed in the spot where the queenless laying worker hive was and I took a couple of frames from the queenless hive and added them to the queenright box.. the queenless hive is on top with the entrance reversed...

define queen bank? a queen rite hive with a cadged queen banked in it? OR a wad of bees with a cadged queen?

If the first you could split the "bank" hive give the banked queen to the 1/2 with out a queen. make the best of the know good bees first.
in a few days add in 1 frame at a time from the "queenless" laying worker/ unknown hive.
Small adds to a bigger queen rite hive will have the least effect. like every 3 days 1 frame should not mess up the queen rite part. Add in the funny bees slowly to a know good setup.

 

[Gray Goose]

By banked I meant that I put her in a 5 frame nuke with some bees/brood in case my splits failed, to prevent swarming I pulled frames of eggs/nurse bees. from this nuke to try to prevent laying workers and to give the split eggs for queen generation.

I did move the queenright hive to a 10 frame box placed in the spot where the queenless laying worker hive was and I took a couple of frames from the queenless hive and added them to the queenright box.. the queenless hive is on top with the entrance reversed...

ok clear now 1 good queen, for 2 hives. seems you are on the right track. thank you

 

[Rlahaise]

ok clear now 1 good queen, for 2 hives. seems you are on the right track. thank you

Thanks, I’m new enough at hive manipulation to question my decisions so confirmation that I’m not totally off track helps ��

 

[Gray Goose]

only issue i can see is the field bees going back to the Bank hive, may want to place a Nuc box there with 1 comb, shake it on the porch of the new location every nite for a few days. I would likely have done it the other way around, preserving the good hives field bees. maybe added a frame or 2 at a time to slowly work it up. either way it should work. the value for me would be the combs and stores, the bees from the failed hive are somewhat a bonus to the good queen, however loosing her field bees is also worth noting. if close they will likely fly around and join a nearby hive. only other item to note is they "may" have a little dink queen that is a drone layer, or non layer, so go thru the comb really good so as not to put 2 queen in the same box, Murphy's law the crappy queen will take over. you are likely planning to newspaper combine in a few day to unite the whole works correct? May need to feed to get stores up for winter, unless there is a lot of honey in the combined hive
GG

 

[Rlahaise]

I did leave the nuke when I put the frames in a full size box, I had kept it quite weak so it had limited field bees, I have been shaking them out in front of the hive at dusk..

I went through the failed hive every day for 4 days looking for a queen suspecting a virgin or a non mated queen and all I could see in my mind was workers and 5-6 drones..

They have very little stores and I’ll be feeding heavily as soon as I have the two combined.. as for comb I can’t believe what two of my other hives are capable of.. one was overwintered and super strong this spring the other was a new nuke I purchased locally.. I extracted two mediums from the overwintered hive and one from the new hive, the new hive got a box of empty frames, half with plastic foundation and half with homemade frames with a V style top bar... in ten days they drew out all the frames, filled them with honey and capped it, the overwintered hive refilled one box and capped it and the second box was 3/4 full of nectar... I have made 5 extra boxes and bought frames to supplement what I had made and I’m completely out of equipment ... hard to complain but I might need to extract again so they do t get honey bound with no room to raise winter bees...

This is by far the most impressive year I’ve had as far as honey goes and the weather has been “bee horrible”. I now have 6 hives with 4 mediums on each and the failed split and it’s looking pretty busy today!

only issue i can see is the field bees going back to the Bank hive, may want to place a Nuc box there with 1 comb, shake it on the porch of the new location every nite for a few days. I would likely have done it the other way around, preserving the good hives field bees. maybe added a frame or 2 at a time to slowly work it up. either way it should work. the value for me would be the combs and stores, the bees from the failed hive are somewhat a bonus to the good queen, however loosing her field bees is also worth noting. if close they will likely fly around and join a nearby hive. only other item to note is they "may" have a little dink queen that is a drone layer, or non layer, so go thru the comb really good so as not to put 2 queen in the same box, Murphy's law the crappy queen will take over. you are likely planning to newspaper combine in a few day to unite the whole works correct? May need to feed to get stores up for winter, unless there is a lot of honey in the combined hive
GG

 

[Gray Goose]

:thumbsup: