I am lucky enough as a beekeeper to have an observation hive I manage at the Nature Center where I work. The queen in there is going on her 3rd year!
The queen in there is amazing. These bees have a whole Nature Center to forage in, pesticide free and are incredibly healthy! In this picture you can see a whole frame of brood (baby bees).
The secret to these are very different than the Langstroth hives. They have 3 1/2 frames and have to be constantly emptied. I just recently had to take some bees out and placed them in this Nuc hive, tape it up and bring them home to my hive.
The hive that I wintered over was struggling to rebound from the winter and even though I did find brood, adding more brood was certainly a plus for this hive.
I emptied the new bees into the hive, but first I had to reverse the frames because the queen was in the upper chamber. By doing this it puts the hive in a more natural state.
I then placed newspaper over the older bees, put the second hive body on top and added the new bees. This gives the old bees a safe haven and the new bees a chance to accept the older bees and the queen. They will begin to accept her pheromones and chew thru the newspaper to get to her and take care of her. At this point the hive will merge and become stronger. I will post an update next week on the results!
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