[northbee]

Hi all,

I live just north of the site of the Interstate 35 tragedy on 5/24/2010. I went to the site following work on wednesday this past week and found the biggest swarm I have ever seen. I hived them on site and observed them over the next couple days. I suspected them to be queenless and upon inspection this afternoon confirmed this as there was no signs of brood or eggs almost five days after being hived.

So this brings me to my question. What should I do?

Here is my circumstance:

I have 2 nucs arriving Memorial day. I am tempted to combine one with this swarm to make a colony immediately capable of production. Should I do this and how? I am also thinking about ordering a queen and splitting off a nuc to restart a third colony from the nuc/swarm combo.

Any thoughts would be appreciated and any advice besides the ones I have would be considered. Thanks.

 

[AmericasBeekeeper]

Get a queen and make this a seperate hive. If they grow fast enough to split and that is what you want to do get another queen in a few weeks or months.

 

[beenerds]

Talk to the supplier of your nucs and try to get a queen when you go to pick up your girls.

Good luck

 

[brac]

How many pounds of bees do you think it is?

 

[northbee]

Thanks for the advice so far. I will not be able to get an additional queen with my nuc pickup but I have one on the way which I ordered last night.

As for how many pounds of bees I would estimate 15-20. To put it in perspective they filled two deeps and a medium bottom board to inner cover wall to wall. How many pounds do people think it is.

Any thoughts on techniques for introducing a caged queen to this mass of bees?

 

[honeyman46408]

I would steal a frame of brood with eggs from one of the new nucs and give them and stack comb homey supers on top, when you get the new queen you can introduce her IF there arent any cells if there are cells take the frame and a couple more and put them in a nuc-- lots of different things you can do with that many bees

 

[Adrian Quiney WI]

I would put your nucs into a brood box each and put them both over a box of those bees and do two newspaper combines. Then get supers on ASAP. The honey flow is starting and with that many bees already you could cash in quickly. By the way if you look at "nature's nectar blog" Jim has a good entry on doing a combine. Adrian.

 

[Ross]

I agree, you have enough bees to make at least two viable production hives.