Once queen cells have been raised, the virgins have to be mated. This has traditionally been done by making up a nucleus, with full size frames, for each queen, effectively taking a lot of bees out of honey production, just to support one queen. Modern plastics, and a different approach to creating a mini colony, have given us the mini-nuc, which uses only a cupful of bees at a time. Not only that, but each mini-nuc can look after a number of queens in succession.
This is the technique:
Assemble the mini-nuc with a strip of foundation only, no comb, in each frame. Fill the feeder compartment with candy.
Shake young bees into a box and spray them with sugar syrup.
Drop one large cupful of sticky, wet bees into the mini-nuc, and close-up, making sure that ventilation is clear.
Leave for about an hour, until the bees roar in panic, then run a virgin queen in.
Leave in a cool dark place for two or three days.
Release the bees at the chosen site.
Check in two weeks for signs of laying. |
