[Tommy Tip Top]

I have a drone laying colony which I recently shook out and let them return to a 'new box' in which I placed a queen cell.After 3 weeks this is still 'unopened'. Last year the colony killed a queen which I carefully introduced.
Yesterday I captured a swarm.
My idea is to hive the swarm in the position where the drone laying colony is. At the same time, I will take the drone laying colony 100m away and shake them out again. My idea is that the 'good' workers will return to their old position now taken by my new swarm. Will this work?

 

[Rick 1456]

IMO it is very risky.
The LW and their support team will/can return to THEIR hive. They very well may kill the swarm queen. I have excellent results putting the swarm next to the LW. Put a trap out cone on the LW. The returning good bees will go in with the swarm. Couple of weeks or less, most will have moved over. Your swarm will be bigger and more organized. Then you can do your dump. Won't bee many bees.
I have reversed the hives but you still need the cone on the LW hive and do not do the dump.

 

[gmcharlie]

Its a reasoable plan, but you failed to mention why its a drone laying hive, No queen or just a poor one? if its a poor one find her and kill her. If its a laying worker I would do a newspaper combine. they will reconize a real queen in short order.
If you move them and dump and there is a bad queen there your going to have issues.

 

[jrbbees]

The LW will kill the Swarm Queen. Put a frame of eggs and open brood in the LW hive. Do that for three weeks. They will raise a queen.
Leave the Swarm hive to itself.

 

[Rick 1456]

Good catch, GM. I failed to pick up on that. Makes a big difference if there is drone laying queen.
If it is a LW situation, my experience has been they kill the queen most/all of the time. Risky game if you have a nice swarm. MHO

 

[Charlie B]

If its a laying worker I would do a newspaper combine. they will reconize a real queen in short order.

Yes, they will recognize the "real" queen in the short time it takes to go through the newspaper and kill her. Place the egg frames in, one a week for three weeks. You can't go wrong that way.

 

[Tommy Tip Top]

Thanks Rick.
Is a trap out cone simply a 'filter funnel' strapped to the entrance? (obviously with a bee sized exit?) Will the laying workers stay inside? Really interesting advice! Thanks again.

 

[scdw43]

I shook a LW hive out today put the combs on a hive fifty feet away. The bees I shook out returned to the other hives around where their hive was setting. It took 30 min for the bees to find a home. As I shook them on the ground I threw flour on them to see were they went, Most bees returned to the spot where their box used to sit. Over the next few minutes I watched as they went to hives as much as twenty feet away in both directions. No fighting observed as we are in a minor flow. I did not let the bees cluster I kept brushing them off of the 6x6 they were landing on about every five minutes. You do what you want but I don't waste brood on LW's. I don't want my combs messed up with drone brood. In three weeks that it might take to get them to draw a cell, one of my other queens can lay that box full of brood and I can make two or three nucs from the brood. A box full of bees without a queen is just a box full of dying bees. Just my two cents.