The Nucleus Method - Artificial Swarm
- Day One
- Put empty nuke near the hive.
- Open the hive and find the frame with the queen.
- Place the frame with the queen in middle of the nuke.
- Place a frame of brood each side of the queen frame.
- Move all 3 frames to side of nuke.
- Shake bees from 2 brood box frames into the nuke.
- Fill the nuke with frames.
- Stuff the nuke entrance with grass.
- Move the nuke away from the hive.
- In the hive destroy any sealed queen cells
- Find two unsealed queen cells to keep.
- Mark their location with drawing pins on top bar.
- Push frames to one side of brood box.
- Fill gap with empty frames.
- Rebuild hive.
- Day Two
- Remove grass plug from nuke.
- Eggs take three days to hatch
- Workers can rear a queen from a larva less than 3 days older.
- Thus workers have 6 days to start a new queen.
- It will be another 8 days before the queen emerges.
- Day Seven
- Carefully check the brood box.
- Very easy to damage the almost queens.
- Choose one queen cell and destroy the other.
- Day Twenty One
- Open the colony and check for a laying queen.
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