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Checked the swarm hive, and just as I feared, no queen.
Been hived 8 days today with a frame of brood. When I checked 4 days ago, there were a few Qcells being formed. Today, there were at least 8 capped Qcells and a couple more not yet capped.
I had two donor brood frames ready in case I needed to drop them in, so I decided to do an impromptu nuc. One empty, one full of honey & pollen, and one mostly capped brood with the drone & a few young larva. Double-checked that the current queen was not on the frame. Then I cut 3 Qcells from the swarm hive & attached them to the donor brood so I could double my chances of a viable queen.
The Qcells had to be capped yesterday or today. Nice & thick tips. So if the bee math is right, new queens should emerge in about a week, and should be laying by the middle of June.
If the donated swarm queen doesn't work out, I may see about requeening with a Russian.
Any suggestions about what else I can do? Should I give them one more frame of open brood since all they have now is capped?
Been hived 8 days today with a frame of brood. When I checked 4 days ago, there were a few Qcells being formed. Today, there were at least 8 capped Qcells and a couple more not yet capped.
I had two donor brood frames ready in case I needed to drop them in, so I decided to do an impromptu nuc. One empty, one full of honey & pollen, and one mostly capped brood with the drone & a few young larva. Double-checked that the current queen was not on the frame. Then I cut 3 Qcells from the swarm hive & attached them to the donor brood so I could double my chances of a viable queen.
The Qcells had to be capped yesterday or today. Nice & thick tips. So if the bee math is right, new queens should emerge in about a week, and should be laying by the middle of June.
If the donated swarm queen doesn't work out, I may see about requeening with a Russian.
Any suggestions about what else I can do? Should I give them one more frame of open brood since all they have now is capped?
