[Mimzy]

My question is which brood box will sit in the original spot and which one will sit about one foot away??
OMG I"m so sorry to bother with another question! I remember all the steps I'm supposed to take to take to requeen my hive that has a failing queen except where to put the box.
1. shake the bees into the bottom brood box
2. shake the bees off and move my one frame of brood a friend gave me to the top box
3.put frames with some honey/pollen at the top...and the new queen cage.
4. give them some drawn out foundation frames
5. Put on a queen excluder and all the nurse bees and workers that want to come to the top will
6. If I do have a queen at all- she should be trapped in the bottom
7. Tomorrow I should go in the bottom box and look for the queen. If I find her I can move her .... should I move her in the bottom box she is in... NEXT to the Original box?
8. or should the box with the new queen and frame of brood be in the Original location. My boxes are going to sit next to one another with about a foot between them.
I don't know if I put the new queen's box in the original spot or the old queen (which I think is not really in there).

 

[beepro]

O.k. since I have done this so many times I cannot remember how many times anymore. I make this process simple so I don't
have to worry much or play with the frames or bees. I don't shake any frame either. I don't even have this many steps to think about. Here are my simple steps for a split or new queen introduction:
1. If you see new eggs then the original old queen is still in there. If the hive is queen less now then they
will be happy to accept a new queen when you give them one. This is the easy part.
2. To make a new hive split, take some young nurse bees from 2 frames to put in a nuc. Follow by 2
frames of honey and pollen in the nuc. Then get another frame of nurse bees to brush them in the nuc hive.
3. Give them a new queen inside a cage and they should be happy.
4. Take the new nuc hive to a new location at 1 foot away next to the original hive.
5. After 2 days check the nuc hive to see how many bees still in there after the drift if any and that the new
queen is happily laying.

 

[Mimzy]

Thanks "beepro" Pretty sure my hive is queen less since I've not seen any worker brood since I started looking March 10. Other people in my area have 5-6 frames of brood. So I just stuck the queen cage in there and called it a day. The bees were really quick to go hang around the queen cage.

 

[beepro]

I think you have a queen less hive now. A month is a long time to wait. Should of intervene sooner.
But not too late either since you have a laying queen available. If they are fanning to say here is the
new queen then it is safe to release her otherwise leave her alone for the bees to release her. I would
release her sooner that she can lay faster.

 

[Mimzy]

It's been either cold, pouring rain or surprise snow storms. Last week my entire basement family room was flooded with 4 inches of muddy rain water. There have not been queens available- even the experienced guys in our club were waiting on queens if they couldn't switch things around. It's just they have more hives to equalize better than me with only one hive. Quite a few folks here are in my same situation. All I can do is hope it all work from this point forward. I had to drive 3 hours to get the replacement queen Wednesday and they only became available the Friday before.

 

[beepro]

Yes, this year's weather is so unpredictable. Sometimes 5 days raining follow by 2 days sunshine.
The whole summer here will have drought everywhere. Farmers complaint that there is no water allocation
for his farm next year because of the drought this year. Feed and food prices are increasing gradually esp. next year
that we have a drought here. Since honey bees are very sensitive to their environment anything that change will affect
their livelihood. If you keep bees then do have 2 hives. This way you can balance the 2 in case one hive is in trouble.
The most noticeable is a hive coming out of winter with very low population. And the drifters going back to its original hive
when making a split. A second strong hive can supply nurse bees for the newly split nuc hive too. I feel safer when there is
at least 4 strong hives going into summer. Last winter I combined 3 dwindling hives into one strong one while sacrificing 2 nice
gentle queens. I did not kill them but the worker bees did. Into this early Spring I made 3 more splits from this strong hive. I will
continue to split up the strongest hive since it is easy to make queens where drones are plenty here. If there is any weak hive I will
recombine them again going into the Fall to over winter with. But with just one hive you cannot be that flexible to manage them well.
If I were you I would wait until the weather settle down and then make your split. Right now it is time to feed them both nectar and patty
to allow them to grow into a strong hive ready for your splits later on with more stable weather. I think your new queen will make it just
have to be a bit patience here.