Trap Out nuc – Brought Home

I went back to last week’s trap-out site last night and gathered the nuc-box and brought all the ladies home.

Today, I checked on them – and they seem to be doing very well. They have not drawn out any more comb (I had provided them a frame of comb/eggs) – but I had removed about 1/3 of the bottom of 3-4 cells that contained eggs on the frame. Just to let them have a head start on creating a new queen.

The frame now has those 4 cells started as queen cells, and they created a few more on the opposite side of the frame – that I had not removed the bottom off of.

The ladies are bearding from the other (foundationless) frames, and I believe they may start drawing more comb – as I’m now feeding them in the bee yard (feeder with only 3 holes in it placed next to the nuc) – I have my other hive a bottle to suckle on to keep them from trying to rob the trap-out nuc). I’ll add a frame of nectar/honey from my other hive to the nuc to make feeding less a potential frenzy.

I’ll also wait til they draw a few more frames before I move them to a 10-frame box.