Welcome to splitsville. We have quite an interesting situation going on here. Due to yet another supersedure (replacement) of the queen in our Hive #1, we have an abundance of queen cells that have been made. You may remember us discussing the long, peanut shaped cells once before in
Death of the Monarch.
These cells have been created to house queen larvae to replace the old queen. The first time this happened, we bought a new queen to speed the process between queens. This was unacceptable to the bees, however, and once they stabilized again, they superseded, again. This time, we've decided to let the bees do their own thing and raise their own new queen, even though it means a lot of down time before the hive starts growing again. In any case, now that we have these supersedure (SS) cells, we've decided to do a split into a nucleus (nuc) hive, so that we will have a spare queen on hand if this happens again. If it doesn't happen again, it's very easy to introduce the nuc into a standard 10-frame hive and then we'll have another full hive.
This here is the five-frame nuc, after I loaded it with the following: 1-Frame from Hive#1 with the SS cell. This is the frame that will provide the nucleus with a queen. 1-Frame from Hive #1 with soon to be emerging brood. This will provide the nuc with bees to forage and build comb as well as care for the eggs and larvae. 1-Frame from Hive #1 with some empty, drawn comb, and some space to draw new comb. This gives the queen someplace to lay once she starts laying, and gives the workers work to do while trapped in the nuc. 1-Frame from Hive #2 with lots of capped honey for food, and 1-Frame from Hive #2 with more capped brood, to help work the hive (nuc). I also shook several frames worth of bees into the nuc to provide plenty of workers immediately. You can see in the picture above that there is a feeder attached to the front of the hive. This is especially important because what you may not be able to see is that the opening to the right of the feeder is covered with window screen. This will stay in place for 2-3 days, to prevent the bees from all leaving and going back to their original host hive tonight. However, in 2-3 days, they will have become accustomed to their new home and will begin foraging to provide for it.
NOW, on to the very interesting part. This will require some background: When we ordered our first hives, I specified that the queens were to be marked, and not clipped. (It's a common practice to clip the wings of the queen to prevent her from flying in an attempt to control swarming. I elected to pass on this.) So my unclipped queens were marked with a white dot on their back.
Now, in hive #1, we had to requeen as already discussed. In this case, I DID elect to have a clipped, marked queen, she was marked with a yellow dot. So, until very recently I had a clipped queen in Hive #1 (yellow dot), and an unclipped queen (white dot) in Hive #2. Hive #1's queen (clipped) recently disappeared. During inspection today, I discovered a clipped queen with a yellow dot in hive #2. So, what has happened, is my queen from hive #1 jumped ship and went over to hive #2. At this point, it's unclear if there are two queens in hive #2 (not unheard of), or if this new queen went over to hive #2 and killed off the old queen.
These cells have been created to house queen larvae to replace the old queen. The first time this happened, we bought a new queen to speed the process between queens. This was unacceptable to the bees, however, and once they stabilized again, they superseded, again. This time, we've decided to let the bees do their own thing and raise their own new queen, even though it means a lot of down time before the hive starts growing again. In any case, now that we have these supersedure (SS) cells, we've decided to do a split into a nucleus (nuc) hive, so that we will have a spare queen on hand if this happens again. If it doesn't happen again, it's very easy to introduce the nuc into a standard 10-frame hive and then we'll have another full hive.
This here is the five-frame nuc, after I loaded it with the following: 1-Frame from Hive#1 with the SS cell. This is the frame that will provide the nucleus with a queen. 1-Frame from Hive #1 with soon to be emerging brood. This will provide the nuc with bees to forage and build comb as well as care for the eggs and larvae. 1-Frame from Hive #1 with some empty, drawn comb, and some space to draw new comb. This gives the queen someplace to lay once she starts laying, and gives the workers work to do while trapped in the nuc. 1-Frame from Hive #2 with lots of capped honey for food, and 1-Frame from Hive #2 with more capped brood, to help work the hive (nuc). I also shook several frames worth of bees into the nuc to provide plenty of workers immediately. You can see in the picture above that there is a feeder attached to the front of the hive. This is especially important because what you may not be able to see is that the opening to the right of the feeder is covered with window screen. This will stay in place for 2-3 days, to prevent the bees from all leaving and going back to their original host hive tonight. However, in 2-3 days, they will have become accustomed to their new home and will begin foraging to provide for it.
NOW, on to the very interesting part. This will require some background: When we ordered our first hives, I specified that the queens were to be marked, and not clipped. (It's a common practice to clip the wings of the queen to prevent her from flying in an attempt to control swarming. I elected to pass on this.) So my unclipped queens were marked with a white dot on their back. 
Now, in hive #1, we had to requeen as already discussed. In this case, I DID elect to have a clipped, marked queen, she was marked with a yellow dot. So, until very recently I had a clipped queen in Hive #1 (yellow dot), and an unclipped queen (white dot) in Hive #2. Hive #1's queen (clipped) recently disappeared. During inspection today, I discovered a clipped queen with a yellow dot in hive #2. So, what has happened, is my queen from hive #1 jumped ship and went over to hive #2. At this point, it's unclear if there are two queens in hive #2 (not unheard of), or if this new queen went over to hive #2 and killed off the old queen. 
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