When we picked up the 25 boxes of bees last week we were given a spare queen in case something would have happened to the girls that came with each box. Since they were looking pretty good we had decided that we would create a small hive (4) frames and add some bees from other hives along with the extra queen just in case we lost a hive because of a swarm.
Last night Jim had the hive box all set up and ready to go. He screened it in so the girls we added would not leave to go back to their original hives and added a frame of honey and pollen. When I went out to put her in, there were a ton of bees inside the box trying to rob the honey out of it. There I was trying to balance a frame of bees in one hand the queen in another and bees coming and going. I ended up putting the the queen in and gently brushing only one frame of bees in the box before I quickly closed it.
When Jim got home he went out to the yard, pulled frames from two other hives and after he made sure the queen was not on the frames he brushed those bees into the box.
So now we wait. They have honey and pollen which should keep content for a couple of days, now we just have to see if they are all going to get along and if they will take to their new queen. Time will tell.
Movie showing nuc box
No comments:
Post a Comment