# Place a Queen? Or place resources from a strong to a weak hive!?



## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

Which way is better to strengthen a weak hive?
If you move 2 frames of brood and nurse bees from a strong hive to a weak one. You are moving possibly 14,000 cells then another 4-5 thousand nurse bees from the strong hive to the weak one. Then your asking the weak hive to make a queen.
When if you simply pull a Queen from a strong hive. Put her in the weak one. She starts laying very fast. The strong hive has plenty of resources to make a new queen.
Well I'm trying it and results of the new queen will come up in a new video within a week.


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## G3farms (Jun 13, 2009)

I would try to figure out why the hive is weak to start with.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Struttinbuck,
Makes sense to me, go for it.


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

G3farms said:


> I would try to figure out why the hive is weak to start with.


Wouldn't want it to have disease for sure. Or mite ridden. The hive I'm doing just appears that the queen stopped laying everything. No eggs, larvae, drones or anything. I noticed some bees backed into open cells like they died from the cold. So that has me wondering if the queen was damaged from excessively low temperatures.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

putting the queen from your strong hive in that nuc is just wasting a good queen, the nuc doesn't have enough bees to do any kind of expansion, and those bees are probably old. I would just kill the queen and shake out the nuc.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I can't see a video here, what platform are you using?
And since I can't see a video, just how weak is this weak hive you're talking about?
Weak is one thing, being on the verge of death is quite another.


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

wildbranch2007 said:


> putting the queen from your strong hive in that nuc is just wasting a good queen, the nuc doesn't have enough bees to do any kind of expansion, and those bees are probably old. I would just kill the queen and shake out the nuc.


Didn't consider that but she's been in it 4 days now. I will go in on the next warm period and see how she's laying up.aybe check her today.


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

RayMarler said:


> I can't see a video here, what platform are you using?
> And since I can't see a video, just how weak is this weak hive you're talking about?
> Weak is one thing, being on the verge of death is quite another.


It's on YouTube. It's between 2-3 frames of bees. Zero brood, zero eggs. They accepted her immediately. Kind of along the lines of some of these 2 frame mating nucs you see.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

And so now it's a 2-3 swarm. I don't see why it wouldn't work. Make sure they have a frame or 2 of stores.

But I can't see the video, don't know why, I see others' on youtube.


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## COAL REAPER (Jun 24, 2014)

eventually you learn that it is not worth the time/effort to prop up weak colonies. shake them out and move on. start a nuc from a stronger colony when the time is right. oh and emergency cells are subpar.


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

COAL REAPER said:


> eventually you learn that it is not worth the time/effort to prop up weak colonies. shake them out and move on. start a nuc from a stronger colony when the time is right. oh and emergency cells are subpar.





COAL REAPER said:


> eventually you learn that it is not worth the time/effort to prop up weak colonies. shake them out and move on. start a nuc from a stronger colony when the time is right. oh and emergency cells are subpar.


 If this can result in making a weak hive a strong one. And also gaining a new Russian Queen in the strong hive. Then I win. Anything less would be in the loss category.


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## COAL REAPER (Jun 24, 2014)

Struttinbuck said:


> If this can result in making a weak hive a strong one. And also gaining a new Russian Queen in the strong hive. Then I win. Anything less would be in the loss category.


well than consider that you would russian drones available, ideally of a different colony than your virgin came from. good luck!


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

COAL REAPER said:


> well than consider that you would russian drones available, ideally of a different colony than your virgin came from. good luck!


Lots of New River Carnicas and Russian drones. And thanks. We will see.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

OK, I've seen the vid. That's not a weak hive, that's a dead hive. You've just moved a good laying queen into a coffin. Give her some pollen and honey frame and a couple frames of emerging brood. Treat her like the good queen she has been, and then your experiment will work.


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

RayMarler the use of dramatic words with me is totally unecessary. I have a good understanding of our bee keeper lingo and if we stick to them may communicate with each other much better. Otherwise people can confuse colorful and dramatic language as being combative.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

Struttinbuck said:


> Then your asking the weak hive to make a queen.


A weak hive that needs a queen is a queen less hive.
Weak IMO would recover in time.

bee better to add the comb to a hive needing space.
if you add brood and have a queen made you may as well made a NUC, same effort.

hope it works.
I try not to throw good bees into bad hives, just take the hit and replace it.

GG


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

Im going to shim it down to a 2 frame nuc. And if the bee coverage goes down will add a frame of emerging brood. But if the bees numbers stay relatively the same. There is already bee bread and nectar in there. I think this is the fastest and most resourceful way to get this hive back. Plus gain another new queen.
I'm keeping a close eye on it.


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

RayMarler said:


> OK, I've seen the vid. That's not a weak hive, that's a dead hive. You've just moved a good laying queen into a coffin. Give her some pollen and honey frame and a couple frames of emerging brood. Treat her like the good queen she has been, and then your experiment will work.





RayMarler said:


> OK, I've seen the vid. That's not a weak hive, that's a dead hive. You've just moved a good laying queen into a coffin. Give her some pollen and honey frame and a couple frames of emerging brood. Treat her like the good queen she has been, and then your experiment will work.


Actually if I just go ahead and add the frame of emerging brood. It should give her the nurse bees she needs for an extended period of time. I'm on it tomorrow. Thanks for the colorful advice. Sincerely.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Struttinbuck said:


> RayMarler the use of dramatic words with me is totally unecessary. I have a good understanding of our bee keeper lingo and if we stick to them may communicate with each other much better. Otherwise people can confuse colorful and dramatic language as being combative.


LOL, sorry, _no not combative at all_. Very colorful and dramatic? Yes indeed! I'm trying to get a point across and hoping for a response that will help that queen out! Maybe call it shock therapy! But combative? Never, they just bees and everyone gets to experiment with them anyway they want. I've done more than my share of experimenting with them myself, I've been doing this a long time. Good luck to you with this endeavor.


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

RayMarler said:


> LOL, sorry, _no not combative at all_. Very colorful and dramatic? Yes indeed! I'm trying to get a point across and hoping for a response that will help that queen out! Maybe call it shock therapy! But combative? Never, they just bees and everyone gets to experiment with them anyway they want. I've done more than my share of experimenting with them myself, I've been doing this a long time. Good luck to you with this endeavor.


Like I said, I'm familiar with the vocabulary enough. I'm in my 3rd year of bee keeping so make no claims to be a good bee keeper at all. I am new. But the terminology and my understanding of it leaves drama totally unecessary. And again. Sincere thanks for the emerging brood advice. 
My area of expert experience has little to do with agriculture. But I've always loved agriculture of every type.


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

Again. I am not an expert bee keeper. But I do claim to know math and mechanics on an expert level.
So when you take 2 frames of brood out of a strong working beehive. It takes 2 weeks for that queen to be able to lay those 2 frames up again with brood. Since I use small cell foundation the numbers are even higher at almost 10,000 cells per frame of brood. If I move 2 frames of brood out of a strong hive, that is almost 3 weeks worth of work for a fully laying queen to catch up to. To remove 2 frames out of a fully functioning hive I am trying to keep away from.
So thanks to some very good advice, but instead of moving frames ,I just moved the position of the hive over to where a strong hive was before. This way only foragers are resupplying the weak hive. All the bees in the weak hive were rarely leaving the hive anyway so they were all nurses. So now with a good supply of foragers. And a super good nectar flow. I think this hive and the one I took the queen from are both going to do better than before.
Even the hive that I just moved lost alot of foragers. But on a daily basis all day long that hive is having nurse bees graduating to forager bees. And suspect even today will start seeing some traffic in and out of that hive.
Thank you gentlemen for pointing out the sustainability numbers.


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

Updated video. And I'm thinking since the hive that is making an emergency queen is probably using a 3 day old larvae, that they will have a queen cell capped on may 14th or 15th. If the weather is warm I will dig in to see what this queen cell looks like and if there are numerous cells.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

What you have done will greatly help. Foragers coming and going with a good flow on. That gives food to raise brood, and if needed, they will revert to nursing bees as brooding increases.

I agree with your math and thinking, it would setback a hive to remove frames of emerging brood. I still would have moved 1 frame, but what you did will help greatly as I said. After all, you in essence are saving this queen for future needs of brood for boosting other hives or for building up strong enough to over winter and it is still early in the year.

And, did you think of what's happening now in the hive you removed the queen from? Lessening brood to feed as the new queen is being made. The brood needing feeding will all be capped brood in a week and a half, but foraging will keep happening. The new queen being made won't be laying for 21-28 days from the old queen being removed. So, excess honey will be stored, and as the new queen gets mating and needing room to lay, the bees will start moving honey up to give her room. You will see an increase in honey amounts in this hive in three weeks.  However, you will have lost 3+ weeks worth of brooding which will set the hive population back quite a bit, which is good if done during swarming season AND if you have a summer flow for the increasing population to gather to add to the increased spring gathering while the queen was being made.


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

RayMarler said:


> What you have done will greatly help. Foragers coming and going with a good flow on. That gives food to raise brood, and if needed, they will revert to nursing bees as brooding increases.
> 
> I agree with your math and thinking, it would setback a hive to remove frames of emerging brood. I still would have moved 1 frame, but what you did will help greatly as I said. After all, you in essence are saving this queen for future needs of brood for boosting other hives or for building up strong enough to over winter and it is still early in the year.
> 
> And, did you think of what's happening now in the hive you removed the queen from? Lessening brood to feed as the new queen is being made. The brood needing feeding will all be capped brood in a week and a half, but foraging will keep happening. The new queen being made won't be laying for 21-28 days from the old queen being removed. So, excess honey will be stored, and as the new queen gets mating and needing room to lay, the bees will start moving honey up to give her room. You will see an increase in honey amounts in this hive in three weeks.  However, you will have lost 3+ weeks worth of brooding which will set the hive population back quite a bit, which is good if done during swarming season AND if you have a summer flow for the increasing population to gather to add to the increased spring gathering while the queen was being made.


That's kind of what I was thinking but you took it steps further. My initial thinking was along the lines of a more efficient walk away split. Easier on the bees and easier on the bee keeper. Finding that balance where making the strong hive produce the new queen and the new split hive start growing immediately.


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