Hi People
So Im a hobbyist and have recently been grafting and making new queens. I grafted 10 and 3 have taken, so so far so good.
I am using a very well fed 5 frame Nuc setup as the queen rearing/finishing colony.
Before the virgin queens emerge I can make other five frame nucs from existing hives and place the queen cells into these.
(I dont want to just kill the queens in the existing hives and insert new queen cells in case the new queens don't return from mating or don't lay properly.)
Then when the queens have returned after mating and are laying I can introduce them to their full size hive by making these queenless using a queen cage and candy to delay the introduction of the new queen.
The part I'm having trouble with is what do I then do with the five farme nucs that are now queenless (they were used to queen raise or house the new queens for their mating and return.)
Can I just put these frames and bees back into their donor hives, will the bees fight, or should I just kill the existing queens and introduce new queen cells into the existing hives and hope for the best.
Best regards
Peewee
So Im a hobbyist and have recently been grafting and making new queens. I grafted 10 and 3 have taken, so so far so good.
I am using a very well fed 5 frame Nuc setup as the queen rearing/finishing colony.
Before the virgin queens emerge I can make other five frame nucs from existing hives and place the queen cells into these.
(I dont want to just kill the queens in the existing hives and insert new queen cells in case the new queens don't return from mating or don't lay properly.)
Then when the queens have returned after mating and are laying I can introduce them to their full size hive by making these queenless using a queen cage and candy to delay the introduction of the new queen.
The part I'm having trouble with is what do I then do with the five farme nucs that are now queenless (they were used to queen raise or house the new queens for their mating and return.)
Can I just put these frames and bees back into their donor hives, will the bees fight, or should I just kill the existing queens and introduce new queen cells into the existing hives and hope for the best.
Best regards
Peewee