# Late Season Try



## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

Combined a set of nucs and the top one was determined to raise a queen. Crushed nearly a dozen queen cells the first day with lots of royal jelly. Several days later did the recheck and there were 4 more. Crushed one pulling the frame that was really full of royal jelly. But the other 3 were some of the biggest queen cells I have seen in the apiary. At least equal to the biggest I have seen. 

Really after failing at grafting so much, they give me end of the season freebies. 

So grabbed that frame, got off the bees, and placed in a 3 frame nuc. Grabbed a frame of honey, slid it in. Grabbed a frame of young larvae, dropped those bees (hopefully nurse bees) into the nuc and place the frame back in the original hive. Then grabbed a frame of most capped bees with some larvae and placed it in the nuc with the bees on it. Time will tell. I figure if they do ok, I have plenty of stores in my hives I can give them 5 frames of capped honey, and if she starts laying, grabs another 2 frames of capped brood to boost them from some of the other hives. 

Last year I had one nuc swarm around the middle of October and the queen never mated. But she would have been mating around Halloween or later. There are plenty of drones right now in the apiary so I figured I had some lemons lets give it a try... Yea I know LOL drones might not be there in 14 days.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Go ahead and try. You have nothing to lose other than your new nuc split.
It takes almost one month to make a new queen. You are pushing it this year.
Are there anymore drones at the end of October?


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## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

Looking at a queen calendar, if the cells were capped Saturday, they should be start mating around October 14 - 16 if we have good weather. Even if mated poorly and she can limp it through the winter, I will requeen in the spring. Just figured maybe I can get a better idea of the drop dead date for trying here. If she doesn't mate, then I can combine with another weaker nuc.


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## jaked007 (Apr 16, 2014)

Hi Pat
I saw drones in my hives last week. Good luck with your experiment, keep us updated

Jake


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Still lots of drones in north west Alabama. Should be some around your area. Hope she's successful with the mating. Sounds like a good start.


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## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

Dug into the other nuc that had swarm cells yesterday. It had 7 QCs and a laying queen. Open area to lay in, from eggs to capped brood, she is laying in the emerged capped brood cells, not a ton of stores (they will get syrup later this month). So why are they superceding her? 

Didn't have time yesterday to do anything with it, so went in it at 7 AM this morning. Too late, 2 QCs had opened, bees were cleaning royal jelly out of one and the other had the cap still attached and hinged open. One QC was a dwarf so it was crushed and there were four capped ones. There goes my queen probably.

Then grabbed a devided mini mating nuc, pulled out the last 4 QCs, and put two in each side. Grabbed 2 mini frames of brood from the one mini mating nuc still running (I hope to over winter in it 2 or 3 high) and placed one frame of brood in each. Had some mini comb with honey in it in the bee refrig, so grabbed one of each and a frame of drawn comb for each. 

Buttoned her up, plugged the holes for 36 hours and said here goes another crazy experiment. Then this afternoon I went to several big hives, pulled a frame of brood from 3, gave a gentle tap to dislodge older bee and then went to the mini nuc and knocked the nurse bees in. Stocked her up fairly good. Looked around the yard and noted one hive with lots of activity. 

GUESS WHAT - that is right, they were driving out the drones. 

If they all fail I will do a shake out around Halloween and recombine them with my weakest nuc. 

Have come to the conclusion I have not a clue what drives these ladies.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Welcome to Honey Bee Las Vegas. Every day is a gamble. Roll the dice, the bees already did.
You celebrate and say things like "I am the God of bees" when you win but when you lose it's not that bad. Pick up the pieces and roll the dice again next spring.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

At least you might have a chance since the queens are hatched now.
I don't even know about the drone situation out there this late. All I know is that
there are 2 capped cells from last week that I put them in the same nuc now. Maybe by next Saturday they will hatch?
So it is a gamble right now for sure. I suspect a poorly made queen causing the
supersedure now. That is why it is so important to evaluate all the queens first before
putting them into the production hives. The ones from the queen farm have not been
evaluated yet that is why with a package there are many that got superseded. Then there are some queens that
can lay into their 3rd seasons and still not being superseded. And I don't know why?


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## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

Ok so all three of the attempts with creating queens were successful. Apparently most of the "nurse" bees I added were not nurse bees and they returned home. Plus they stayed in the same apiary, so figured lots would leave. But the queens all mated made it back to the hives and started laying as best as they could in super small colonies. However, in the last week between the bad weather, it appears they gave up and swarmed. 

No eggs, only a few older larvae and some capped brood plus some nectar is all that is remaining. One had a single capped queen cell but I crushed it. There was one wax worm in a mini nuc that had just started moving into the comb. About 10 bees in the 3 frame nuc I started, 20 in the first mini and 45-50 bees in the second mini nuc. Will freeze the comb for the spring. 

Good lessons learned, queens can be raised in this area at the end of september. You could start nucs at that time, but just have to dump them into a strong nuc/split. The rest of the nucs created earlier (and stronger) are still laying like crazy. But they sure ate through some stores this week of bad weather.

Nuthing ventured, nothing gained.


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## texanbelchers (Aug 4, 2014)

Good to know.

Speaking of swarming, I caught a tiny swarm last Friday. We were joking about them being mentally challenged leaving this time of year just hours before a storm. I gave them a dry box, some 2:1 and drawn comb. I didn't think the queen was mated by appearance and no eggs, so I pulled the queen includer Monday evening. They left the nice home on Tuesday........ I didn't want stupid bee genes around anyway.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Every year it is a bit different with the weather.
Somehow this late they are still making queen cells with
the mild Autumn weather we are having now in the 70-80s.
So if this way of making some big queen cells work then
why the need to do a graft, right?
I'm consolidating all the fairly strong hives into a 2
queens set up into stronger side-by-side nuc hives separated
by a solid divider. Either a 4 or 5 frame nucs will be use
on each side in a 10 deep hive box. Yes, these are some of the
biggest cells I have ever seen so far almost 1.5" with the smallest
one more than 1" each. At this late in the season I'm not sure if some
drones are still around. Like you, I'm doing a bee experiment here. I'll
keep these queens if they can make it back and laying well. Good for the
Spring expansion too. Wonder why you don't keep some of your mated queens?
You can sell them as newly mated queens in the Spring time too. If this works, 
I'll have 3 more late Autumn queens to play with. They are good for many uses after
the winter here.


Consolidated Autumn nucs:


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## CajunBee (May 15, 2013)

Interesting experiment Pat. I'm still seeing a few drones over on this side of the Sabine. Couple of years ago, I had a hive swarm toward the end of September. They made a new queen but never really spooled up before the cold weather set in. Perhaps too little resources this time of year.


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