Mailing list for the Person County Beekeepers Association, Roxboro, NC

[Robert Brauer <rwbrauer AT gmail.com>]

About a week ago I examined one of my hives and became concerned about swarming.  The hive had very healthy brood patterns and I found numerous queen cells.  I removed three frames of honey and brood (including 2x queen cells) and placed them in nuc box along with two empty frames of foundation. Empty frames of foundation were also placed back in the main hive brood box.  My intention was to leave the queen in the original brood box in hopes that the nuc would make a new queen either from a fresh egg or from one of the transferred queen cells. I did not find the queen but tried to ensure she was not on the transferred frames.  I put a top feeder on the nuc.  

Yesterday I observed the hives from the outside.  The nuc seems to doing fine with what I would characterize as normal foraging activity.  The original main hive seems to be quite unhappy/agitated - I've observed numerous instance of bees ganging up on individuals and dragging them out the front entrance.  I'm not feeding this hive and I don't have an entrance reducer installed.

I'm beginning to suspect that I inadvertently moved the queen to the nuc and the original hive is now queenless - which may explain the odd/aggressive behavior. Agree?

 

I'm inclined to leave them alone for now - the original hive should also have the resources to make a queen.  If a queen is not produced (how long should I wait?) I'm not opposed to purchasing a queen as this has been a strong hive for me and I want to get it back on track.

Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.

      Bob