Originally Posted by
Calluna4u
Depends on when. The perfect bees for making packages or nuc filling are taken from the honey supers during a flow, when the correct age bees are up there drawing wax. However, what is often missed out is that they should be from at least 3 different hives, a mix of bees all shaken in together. This disorientates and confuses due to the scents etc being all over the place, and those bees accept cells virgins and mated queens better than those taken from a single colony....unless they are the same colony the cells or queens came from.
Taken from the nest you get older guard bees and very young nurse bees, plus drones too.....not great if you are trying to at least partially control the mating.