[dwat191]

Advice needed here. The carniolan queen is there with a brood pattern smaller than my fist on two facing frames. I believe that the eggs and brood I see are the same as I saw last week and are chilled dead. There is just a little cluster of bees with her and she just paces around in this small area of brood.
It has been chilly in WV and my other hive has just started to expand it's brood nest to three facing frames. Three brand new nucs have three to five facing frames of brood.
Do I not chase this dwindled hive or do I take a frame of brood with nurse bees from a nuc of all things to save the queen? Thoughts?

 

[brooksbeefarm]

A queen won't lay more eggs than the cluster can cover, if you want to try and save this hive then add a frame of nurse bees and brood ( if you think the donor hive can spare it?)and see how the queen responds? Carnionlan queens go into winter with a small cluster and once they start building up they can build up in a hurry and are prone to swarm. With the up and down crazy weather we've been having here in SW. Mo.my hives have some how built up strong, this coming week is going to be in the mid. to upper 80's so i'll have to look for swarm cells.