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I have hives out in the country and in one of my strong hives I was inspecting, the first frame I pulled, frame one, had the queen on in side of frame, brood, stores, bees but not loaded with bees on that frame. I had an empty nuk right there and it wasn't the plan but I decided to take that frame home, pulled another with some bees and brood. I want the remaining colony to make a new queen.
So the nuk had 2 frames and not a lot of bees but I thought it'd be ok. When I got them to my backyard I had another nuk that needed to be transferred to a 10 frame box, so I moved that one, put the pulled queen nuk in it's place so it would get the foragers coming back. I did that last week, and now this week we had a couple cool nights and I noticed today a big drop in traffic at the nuk. I went in this evening and it looks like almost all the brood got chilled. There's maybe 200-300 bees left. I also put in a frame of empty comb at set up, which was the middle frame and the two other frames in 1 and 2 position. I didn't look hard for the queen but she didn't get my eye either.
Not sure what to do. They are failing fast. I have a few hives in the backyard, should I take something from one of them? Wait and see if they sort it out?
So the nuk had 2 frames and not a lot of bees but I thought it'd be ok. When I got them to my backyard I had another nuk that needed to be transferred to a 10 frame box, so I moved that one, put the pulled queen nuk in it's place so it would get the foragers coming back. I did that last week, and now this week we had a couple cool nights and I noticed today a big drop in traffic at the nuk. I went in this evening and it looks like almost all the brood got chilled. There's maybe 200-300 bees left. I also put in a frame of empty comb at set up, which was the middle frame and the two other frames in 1 and 2 position. I didn't look hard for the queen but she didn't get my eye either.
Not sure what to do. They are failing fast. I have a few hives in the backyard, should I take something from one of them? Wait and see if they sort it out?