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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #4646  by Japey Edge
 29 Aug 2019, 08:03
Hello everyone,

In another thread I've been talking about the introduction of a bought-in queen. Quick summary for those who haven't seen the thread:
I have a big colony in an Abelo poly National
I took two frames of brood and two of stores, with a frame of drawn comb to make up the space - and placed in a 5 frame wooden nuc. Entrance is one beespace. Queen remains in big hive.
I returned and took down around 7 emergency queen cells.
I then placed the queen cage between the two brood frames (cocktail stick keeping it at the top of the frames)
I placed a small piece of perspex over the crown board slot and I can just see her cage - the bees seem to be interested but nothing fierce happening.

I had a look this morning and noticed within one minute, two wasps made their way through the single beespace entrance in the nuc. The bees aren't guarding it. Any ideas what I can do?

Is it possibly because, from the entrance (warm way?) the frames are in order of: empty drawn comb, stores, brood, brood, stores? Should I have made it so the bees would gather closer to the entrance? Should I replace the empty drawn comb with one of honey/brood from another or is this going to complicate the introduction?
 #4648  by Patrick
 29 Aug 2019, 11:28
Wasps going in and out unimpeded is a bad thing. New nucs are particularly vulnerable unfortunately.

I would not mess about but just get on with it and put contents of nuc as is back into main hive where they have security of numbers - at the danger of sounding like a broken record you have got minimum entrances on everything at the moment? If you leave the nuc to go through it’s normal introduction paces there is a high chance it will simply succumb - as long as she’s still caged the risk of a maybe more direct introduction is lower in my view.

Others may think differently however.
 #4649  by Patrick
 29 Aug 2019, 11:35
Sorry Jazz - no I don’t think reordering frames or adding to the nuc is now the issue - it’s wasps getting in and monstering the colony. Due to good beekeeping you have spotted them getting a foothold.

Don’t stress, all is not lost. Plenty of introductions direct without the nuc stage work fine and you have prepped the receiving colony well.
 #4650  by Japey Edge
 29 Aug 2019, 12:01
Yeah all entrances are on really small. The main hive, right next to the nuc, is very active today. I'm guessing it's related to my taking the extracted super off they cleaned out yesterday.

I have a queen introduction cage. Maybe it's worth risking introducing her into the main hive with the introduction cage on a frame of empty cells. Thoughts?
 #4652  by Patrick
 29 Aug 2019, 12:23
Japey Edge wrote:
29 Aug 2019, 08:03
Hello everyone,

I have a big colony in an Abelo poly National
Queen remains in big hive.
I returned and took down around 7 emergency queen cells.
Sorry Jazz - May have misunderstood. The big hive you want to re- queen is still queenright? Then presumably the 7 emergency cells refers to the previously queenless nuc?

You will certainly need to remove the old queen before you can put in the caged bought in queen.
 #4653  by Japey Edge
 29 Aug 2019, 13:10
Patrick wrote:
29 Aug 2019, 12:23
Japey Edge wrote:
29 Aug 2019, 08:03
Hello everyone,

I have a big colony in an Abelo poly National
Queen remains in big hive.
I returned and took down around 7 emergency queen cells.
Sorry Jazz - May have misunderstood. The big hive you want to re- queen is still queenright? Then presumably the 7 emergency cells refers to the previously queenless nuc?

You will certainly need to remove the old queen before you can put in the caged bought in queen.
Yeah Patrick sorry - the plan was to get the queen into the queenless nuc I made up before dispatching of the older queen. Then when it comes to uniting, I'll take the old queen and a frame or two out of the original hive and make up a nuc, then do a newspaper unite with "bought-in queen in nuc" and old colony - using an adaptor board Nigel kindly loaned me.
 #4654  by Patrick
 29 Aug 2019, 15:03
Okey dokey Jazz. If Nigel is helping you direct it probably will get confusing if I chip in random extras which may conflict with already recieved advice.

I would however still maybe move things on a bit if you under siege from wasps.
 #4658  by AdamD
 29 Aug 2019, 19:17
All my colonies have always been the 'cold' way which means that the bees can get access to the entrance to defend it quickly - and at the moment, nucs tend to have the brood by the entrance and stores - being protected - behind and above it.
The odd wasp can get in and cause little or no harm - and they are up and about earlier in the morning than bees. However you could move the frames so bees/brood are by the entrance. If you are really worried, you could always close the entrance one evening and then see in the morning whether wasps are 'at the door' in the morning. Assuming you've lost the flyers whilst making up the nuc, there will be little foraging for a week or so in any case as the older girls have gone home to the old site, so even if the nuc was shut up for a day or two, it would make little difference.
 #4661  by WalnutTreeBees
 29 Aug 2019, 21:34
There is usually a few wasps going into some of my hives in the morning before the bees are up and about, so I wouldn't worry too much. If it continues throughout the day, or if its a lot of wasps going in and coming back out, then I would investigate further. A good number of wasps that go inside don't come out alive, and I think that plenty will get chased back out before they have had chance to feed.

It's up to the bees to defend their hive though. I currently have 4 hives at home which I have the opportunity to observe on a regular basis, and in fact it's the second biggest hive which always has the most wasp activity simply because these bees are the least defensive. I have never seen a wasp come out of the smallest hive (a 12 frame nuc), or either of the other two, yet I regulalry see wasps going in and out of this one hive which is obviously a softer target.