I finally went and moved the lang into the new top bar hive sunday. I couldnt find the queen but decided to just shake the frames into the top bar and hope she stayed put. Well, either she flew off and couldnt find her home and wound up getting balled by the other hive, or was killed while moving. Either way I have emergency cells. She just started laying so not much in the way of brood. The way I look at it, I have a couple options but with it being july, I'm unsure. One thing I will do is try and shake some bees into the queenless hive because the bees that are in there now are reaching the end of their life, and need some more workers. The other hive however I need to keep a close eye on and make sure they dont swarm on me. They have started backfilling and there is far less brood than there was, but a ton of bees of every bar, comb being drawn, it looks great.
Anyways, my options as I see it are.
1. Shake bees and let them raise a new queen.
2. Find the original queen in the big hive and move her and some new bees into the queenless hive, let the other hive raise a new queen.
3. Purchase a local mated queen.
4. Combine the original hive and hope I get through the winter with the hive.
5. Put the weak hive into a small nuc, let them raise a queen and try and get their stores up before winter.
Either way, lesson learned, I was in a rush, wanting to get that done and out of the heat, and I'm paying for it now.
Anyways, my options as I see it are.
1. Shake bees and let them raise a new queen.
2. Find the original queen in the big hive and move her and some new bees into the queenless hive, let the other hive raise a new queen.
3. Purchase a local mated queen.
4. Combine the original hive and hope I get through the winter with the hive.
5. Put the weak hive into a small nuc, let them raise a queen and try and get their stores up before winter.
Either way, lesson learned, I was in a rush, wanting to get that done and out of the heat, and I'm paying for it now.