Moving them on

[kiwiuk927]

Morning,

This is my first year of Queen rasing I currently have about 6 queens laying worker brood within the apidea.

What is the best way for me to move them into a nuc?

I also want to carry on using the apidea for some more queens which I am waiting for them to emerge. Do I merge the current bees with a hive and then refresh the bees within the apiea. Or can I carry on using the same bees? Will they keep the capped brood warm until they emegre?

Or is it best to cut the combe out and place it some where in the hive so the brood can emerge with in the hive. And let the new bees draw out new combe?

Thanks

[fatshark]

Jon will be along in a second ... however, I'd remove the queens, put them into an introduction cage individually and use your normal method to get them into a 2-5 frame nuc. I add queen candy but leave them caged for a day or so until there's no aggression obvious, then remove the cap and let the bees release the queen. The nuc must obviously be queenless. I leave mini mating nucs a day before adding a fresh soon-to-emerge cell. I think Jon doesn't delay.

Certainly use the same bees. Beats re-populating mini-nucs.

At the end of the season you can use a combination of zip ties and gaffer tape (?) to fit apidea frames into a standard super frame and allow them to emerge in a colony, so not wasting any.

[Jon]

wot that man said - but you really can just take the queen out and put the next queen cell straight in. if you leave it too long they tend to start their own queen cell and they sometimes prefer this to the virgin which emerges from the cell you put in.
Watch out for a population explosion if there is a lot of brood in the apidea as it will all emerge around the same time and an overpopulated apidea will abscond.
One solution is to remove the feeder and put 2 more frames in its place. Another is to buy an apidea super and expand upwards. Another is to redistribute brood from more populated to less populated apideas. Another is to swap position of an over populated and an underpopulated apidea when each has a new queen cell in.
Easiest way to save the brood from an apidea at the end of the season is to remove the floor and set it above the feed hole in the crown board of one of your colonies.
Some of mine have their 3rd mated queen already and there may be the odd one produces four if we have decent weather in late August.

[kiwiuk927]

Thanks very much guys