Hello, I have two hives with 3 year old queens. Both were slow to start up this year compared to the hives with younger queens. I pulled those queens and set them up in a nuc. They have finally filled the nuc up with bees and I added a 2nd 5 frame deep. One hive is pulling out the second box of foundation, one hasn't touched it. I really liked both of these queens but am afraid they won't make it through another winter. One of their original hives I pulled them from requeened sucesfully and the other made some type of inter-caste queen that looked just like a worker but laid worker brood. I never saw anything like her. I got rid of her and gave them some new brood and they are requeening again.
I had always heard you shouldn't let a nuc raise its own queen. But does that only apply when you make a split? I'd like to get some more daughter queens from these 3 yo queens. If I pullled a frame with capped brood and set the old queen up in a retirement apartment with that, can a well populated 4 or 5 frame nuc raise its own queen and have her be quality? thanks
I had always heard you shouldn't let a nuc raise its own queen. But does that only apply when you make a split? I'd like to get some more daughter queens from these 3 yo queens. If I pullled a frame with capped brood and set the old queen up in a retirement apartment with that, can a well populated 4 or 5 frame nuc raise its own queen and have her be quality? thanks