I recently split a hive, and added a purchased queen to the split. In the meantime, they raised 5 or 6 small sized emergency queen cells and have capped them. Not the best looking queen cells but who knows?
The new cells should hatch around Wednesday, and I don't have many bees to donate to the new splits, so I was thinking of making some very very small nuc boxes, maybe 8x8x8 with miniature popsicle stick sized frames with some pieces of comb wired in, cutting out the queen cells, shaking in some nurse bees, and sticking them in various places around the yard to hopefully mate. Probably with a single 3/8 entrance hole to keep the robbers from getting in.
Will it work? Can a super miniature hive survive? How small can I go?
If nobody has done this before i'm going to call this new sport "bonzai beekeeping"
The new cells should hatch around Wednesday, and I don't have many bees to donate to the new splits, so I was thinking of making some very very small nuc boxes, maybe 8x8x8 with miniature popsicle stick sized frames with some pieces of comb wired in, cutting out the queen cells, shaking in some nurse bees, and sticking them in various places around the yard to hopefully mate. Probably with a single 3/8 entrance hole to keep the robbers from getting in.
Will it work? Can a super miniature hive survive? How small can I go?
If nobody has done this before i'm going to call this new sport "bonzai beekeeping"