It's funny - I've got a nuc in the back yard with capped queen cells in it, which should hatch on Saturday. I've been thinking about it a lot, because it's not something which has happened in my beekeeping career a lot. It struck me that it's almost like how an expectant father acts!
Anyway, I checked the frame quickly this morning, and where I thought there were two queen cells on that frame, a closer examination shows about 8 or 9 capped queen cells! Some were on the back side; some along the gaps in the frame. So it looks like I have the possibility for more queens than I planned.
A few weeks ago I made a queen castle, which can hold the equivalent of 3 nucs. So with the current gray nuc, I can have 4 nucs going at the same time. What would I do with all those queens? Who knows, but I will probably find someone who can take one or two later in the season. I also have space on my stand for another hive (the former Green hive).
So I plan on Friday morning to steal some resources from both the Pink and Brown hive and make up the 3 sections of the queen castle. I also will take a couple of frames out of the gray nuc which are full of nectar (I don't know why I put 3 frames full of honey/nectar in the nuc - that's way more than they need). Then Friday evening after work I'll go into the nuc, cut out a couple of queen cells for each castle section, and put them in the frames.
Exciting times!!
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