did i do something really stupid?

[beefree]

the hive i thought was queenless wasn't, so i had an extra SMR queen... i took a plastic frame of capped brood, larva, and honey from the one styro hive, stuck it in another styro deep, then i banged off two frames of nurse bees from the wood hive i have (the only hive i thought could easily spare the bees) into the styro and stuck the queen cage in the styro deep with the nurse bees and capped brood frame.  Then, because the hives are only across the yard from each other (not two miles away), i blocked up the entrance with newspaper hoping the nurse bees wouldn't go home to the wood hive.  They have figured out how to get out (day three) at the corner of the entrance, but just as many go in as go out, and they mostly circle around like they are confused (the entrances of the wood hive and the styro hives face different cardinal directions).   Because there are so few bees and they are mostly nurse bees, when i check to see if the queen is released on Saturday, should i also give them an extra frame of capped honey to feed from?   Does this whole slapdash affair have any chance of succeeding?  (i just hated to waste a marked SMR queen...)
beefree

[leominsterbeeman]

Beefree -  

You  sorta did the right thing,  it would be a shame to not use a queen.  

You did not need to block the new hive entrances.  the nurse bees would not fly home.  the new hive is their home.  they have never been outside before.  

You should also give a small colony a smaller space to manage.  If one frame of brood is in a 10 frame hive - that space is too big.  

How many other colonies do you have,  can you steal some from each and give them a boost or  move them to a smaller space - observation hive or 3 frame nuc.    

Definitly give them a frame of food, or even a frame of draw cells.  the more you give them the better the success of making it through the winter.

[beefree]

the SMR queen didn't make it.  They hadn't managed to chew her out of the queen cage.  However, they HAD a queen cell hanging from the middle of  the frame i gave them, so i'm just going to see what happens with that.  If it doesn't rain today, i'll check on them again...mostly to see if the ants have invaded, since i gave them some honey when i discovered the queen dead in her cage and the cup on the frame last Saturday.  I hate ants.

Beefree

[bassman1977]

Yeah, ants suck.