Liam wrote: ↑16 Jun 2021, 11:59
Yes, I read a few post on colony’s rather dying than having queen, crazy. This colony had always been poor and wild.
The nuc idea.. that’s what I did. I had all the nurse bees in one part and re-Queened them, they accepted her and she layed up frames, but was killed when trying to unite all.
It depends how you unite.....One of the more successful methods I use is when your new queen is accepted in the nuc and laying for a couple of weeks then upgrade them to a hive (use dummy boards if necessary) And place this right along side the hive you want to re-queen. Leave another week and then remove original hive off to one side, the flyers will end up entering the hive with your new queen. You can even add a few frames of brood to them.
To date never had the returning flyers ball or kill the new queen doing it this way....that's not to say it won't happen
But the flying bees come back in drips and drabs and are now the "foreigners".
Then a week or so later newspaper/air freshener untie the rest of the move colony (mainly nurse bees....checking for queen cells.
Or as others have said stick a frame of eggs in and let them get on with it.