Does anyone run queenless colonies during flows like OSR.
A mate has a couple of colonies and hates swarming , so come the osr flow, he's moves his queen into a nuc box from his main colony and leaves the main colonies queenless. As the nuc fills up, he moves frames of brood and stores into the main colony and just waits for it to raise a new queen. Every week they get fresh eggs so if anything happens to the new queen, they can have another go.
It seems quite straight forward, gets him a honey excess, minimises his chances of losing a swarm. Maximises his chances of getting a new queen each year, minimises inspections and generally makes his beekeeping in swarm season straight forward.
He only has a couple of colonies and is happy with his process.
Anyone else tried it?
A mate has a couple of colonies and hates swarming , so come the osr flow, he's moves his queen into a nuc box from his main colony and leaves the main colonies queenless. As the nuc fills up, he moves frames of brood and stores into the main colony and just waits for it to raise a new queen. Every week they get fresh eggs so if anything happens to the new queen, they can have another go.
It seems quite straight forward, gets him a honey excess, minimises his chances of losing a swarm. Maximises his chances of getting a new queen each year, minimises inspections and generally makes his beekeeping in swarm season straight forward.
He only has a couple of colonies and is happy with his process.
Anyone else tried it?
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted - Ralph Waldo Emerson