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?