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Author Topic: Taking brood and nurse bees?  (Read 1636 times)

Offline dprater

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Taking brood and nurse bees?
« on: September 01, 2012, 06:16:40 am »
I have a small hive from a swarm I caught a little over a week ago. With advice from (Kathyp) to add some brood and nurse bees it's doing good. Thanks (Kathyp)
I have another hive thats just about to bust. Can I just take maybe two more frames of caped brood and the bees that are on that frame and put it in the small hive or would I upset the balance of young bees and workers? I live in South Carolina so would the brood I have now be my winter bees?

Thanks

Offline buzzbee

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Re: Taking brood and nurse bees?
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2012, 10:20:04 am »
Adding more bees and brood will help boost the population before winter. Go for it.
Any foragers on those frames will return to the old hive leaving behind the nurse and house bees. Just don't overtax the donor hive.
If there is a dearth,be sure to have adequate feed for the new hive so the queen keeps laying. It would be counterproductive adding brood while a queen is layed back on laying because of a dearth.

Offline Finski

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Re: Taking brood and nurse bees?
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2012, 01:33:39 pm »
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To add nurser bees is a bad idea. Probably they attack on the queen and kill it.

Best way is to add one frame of emerging bees. And next week again a new frame.

To add more is a risk, because small hive cannot keep all brood warm and much brood may die in peripheria.

It cannot be what ever capped brood because it takes time when bees emerge.
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