Today I artificially swarmed Poly to create a new hive - something I had to do or they were going to do it for me!I used the [Pagden](http://www.woodwose.net/beeblog/archive/2009/05/16/Chopping_and_Changing “” ) method as described before to do this - move the old hive to a new site, place an empty hive on the original site, and move the queen back, allowing the flying bees to follow in their own time.
I had moved the queen swarm cell out to a nuc box on the new site on Saturday, and this was now capped, so the new hive should have a queen by next Wednesday, and hopefully mated by the 1st of June.
It also looks like the old queen from Wood is gone from her nuc. Given that Wood was superseding her, and that there was no sign of egg laying in the nuc, it seems likely that she’s either been bumped off or kicked out.
Todo
I’ll go back on Friday and prepare to feed the new hive - since they have no flying bees, they won’t be bringing in much in the way of food to be storing. However, there was a significant hatching of brood some time around the 13th, so there should be a good supply of flying bees by the 3rd for honey production. DONE - enough flying bees - fed flying swarm instead.
I also need to look in Wood to see if it does still have a capped queen cell (transferred from Poly previously) or if the bees have torn this down, implying they still think they have a viable queen. DONE - still waiting…
I also need to get the smith frames out of Wood and the new hive, once the queening period has settled - both have the queen cells on them at present. - DONE - last one is now in the empty nuc I think
Empty the nuc from Wood that had the old queen in it - return this to Faye.
