Weakening Nucs

[Moonshae]

I'm not ready to convert my nucs to full hives, but they're so strong, I want to keep them from swarming. In fact, one of them already did, unfortunately, and the other is showing signs of becoming full. When swapping frames of brood into another hive, should I shake off the bees first, or take the bees with each frame? I might cut the nuc replacement frame down to a starter strip to give them something to do, because I don't have any empty frames to use as a replacement.

[Robo]

Sounds like you need to reduce the population too, otherwise they will build right back up rather quickly.  I would either make some more nucs, or take frames with bees away.   Actually I would move them to 10 frame hives so they get strong enough for winter, but I guess that is not an option.

[Moonshae]

Sounds like you need to reduce the population too, otherwise they will build right back up rather quickly.  I would either make some more nucs, or take frames with bees away.   Actually I would move them to 10 frame hives so they get strong enough for winter, but I guess that is not an option.

I'm waiting for my 10-frame equipment to be delivered (currently out of stock), so unfortunately, I have no place to put them.

Will the other hives accept nurse bees? I did a switch once recently on the nuc that swarmed (didn't see a queen, wanted to make sure the nuc had eggs), and found a pile of dead bees outside the strong hive the next day...figured it was the "intruders" that got killed off. I guess it reduces the nuc population regardless, but I don't want to waste bees.

[Robo]

You should be fine,  just be extra careful you don't move your queens.  In fact, I would not count on not seeing her.  I would definately find her, and then move one of the other frames.

There is a method of making nucs that use to be popular called yard trashing.   You basically took all your hives in a bee yard and took frames from each and just assembled honey, brood, eggs into new hives.  You could take 10 hives and make 20 by just moving frames from any to make any.  There was no need to find queens because hives without queens would raise one from the brood you gave them. Those ending up with 2 queens would end upwith one being killed.  So you had frames from many different colonies put in one box and they worked it out.

[Moonshae]

You should be fine,  just be extra careful you don't move your queens.  In fact, I would not count on not seeing her.  I would definately find her, and then move one of the other frames.

That's not a problem, 5 frames are easy enough to search. When I inspect my nucs, I always look for the queen.

I made that mistake last year, when making a nuc, I brought the queen with the frames, but fortunately caught it before it was too late. Managed to introduce the new queen to the old hive, and all was good. Now I check very closely.