[NewBeeLady]

I made a nuc this past Saturday, and was rushing to get done, so I forgot to shake some extra bees in there. Kicking myself. With all of the humidity lately I took advantage of the bees bearding out front of the main hive. So last night I scooped up a small bucket full of bees and dumped them into the new nuc. Was this a dumb move?

Next dumb question: I will be taking the 2 honey supers off of the main hive this weekend. I use the bee brush off method to get rid of the bees. Can I brush them into the nuc?:s

If so, then I will leave the nuc the heck alone, except to watch for queen cells. :no:

New Bee Lady

 

[JWChesnut]

Bad moves. The bees will fight to the death, and some will fly back to the parent hive and recruit others to rob out the resource they discovered.

If you want to add bees, use a newspaper combine to add a second story. In the period after the combine, the new bees will move down, and the extra story can be pulled off. Even this strategy is risky during dearth, as the moved bees sometimes interpret the hive as a resource to be robbed, and communicate this to the parent hive.

You want nurse bees (which will combine without fighting), and bearded bees are forager age. Bees on a solid frame of brood can be moved, these are nurse bee age, and the brood will hatch further bolstering the hive with young house bees. Just don't accidentally move the queen.

Really young larvae introduced into a hive below "critical mass" just gets eaten as protein source, if there are not enough bees to cover. So don't waste brood resources beyond what can be accepted by the hive.

Bee brushes kill a lot of bees. Develop a sharp snap with you wrist to clear a frame, or rap the frame hard on an exposed corner. The few remaining bees can be brushed or shaken off.

 

[Tenbears]

Most of the bees that beard are generally foragers, so they will probably fly back. The best way to add them is to take a frame of brood covered with bees from the parent hive, and shake them into the nuc. However adding bees to a split that has been apart from the hive for too long can result in fighting among the bees, If the split was made more than a few weeks it is best to add them frame and all rarely does this cause a problem.