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?
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?
Jazz