Brood take some pretty tight conditions to succeed. A queen wants certain temperature and moisture ranges. So you may have a cluster that is too small to pull that off. if the cluster is that small, consider placing them in the smallest box you can find. Perhaps one of those dual queen Mating nucs. A small space would make it alot easier for the small colony to control the parameters to meet the needs.
Question regarding what to do with a dying colony.
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About 1.5 months ago I had a bear wreck 3 hives. I managed to salvage good clusters from each and put them back in boxes. Two of them were missing the queen so I replaced them. Once of those two just hasn't really taken off. The queen never started laying. I just looked in and she's in there. Very easy to find. VERY small cluster, basically no resources at all.
So, what should I do? I've brought them frames of honey and emerging bees twice, and I don't really feel like wasting more when it hasn't spurned her to start laying. I figure I just let them die, or ... I put a queen excluder on one of the others and put the non-laying queen on top with a few frames of brood from the other. Is that a really bad idea for some reason?
So, what should I do? I've brought them frames of honey and emerging bees twice, and I don't really feel like wasting more when it hasn't spurned her to start laying. I figure I just let them die, or ... I put a queen excluder on one of the others and put the non-laying queen on top with a few frames of brood from the other. Is that a really bad idea for some reason?
