Moved queen to new hive, now being robbed

[royl]

On May 22, Rob helped me split this large hive http://www.guilfordbeekeepers.org/commu ... f=4&t=1913
The purpose of the split was to get the big hive to make their own queen and possible continue her impressive genome. We took the queen, several frames of brood, and honey and put them a few feet away in a new box.

On June 15, I noticed that there orientation flights were next to nothing. They were never really strong and were slowing down by the day. When I went into the hive I noticed very little capped brood and spotty larva. I did spot eggs and the queen while I was looking. I noticed they had a small population of bees, no pollen, and very very little honey and nectar. I threw a top hive feeder to see if I could stimulate the hive (after all I moved her to a new hive just to keep this amazing queen). The problem I face now: robbing.

I have an entrance reducer on but adjusted it during the robbing session to the smallest hole. I then put my nuc robbing screen (the one with the door on the top and bottom), in front of that. It seemed to help the hive, but the other hives are still robbing. It's not a huge robbing session, just a handful of bees trying to get in the door and various cracks.

I am doing my best to save this hive. Therefore, I am thinking about taking frames of nurse bees and capped brood from my other strong hive and keeping the top feeder on. I know that most likely robbing will continue until they build a stronger population to guard the front. What other measures can I take to save this hive?

[Wally]

Add the frames, leave the robber screen on, and move the nuc 20 feet or more at night.

[royl]

Thank you Wally for the recommendation. I couldn't add the frames today because of the amount of robbing that was going on that time of the day. It looks like the best time of day to move frames of bees/brood is early morning.

I got a little creative instead....I move it about 60 feet tonight in a tree covered area. Where the hive was located, I replaced it with an empty old hive with a top feeder full of sugar water. I'm curious to see tomorrow to see their reaction to an empty hive that looks and smells the same but without any guard bees.

[royl]

I'm glad to report that it seemed to have worked. By moving the hive to a new location and replacing the spot with a pseudo hive, seems to have alleviated the issue. The next morning, after I moved the weak hive, there was robbing on the fake hive but no robbing on the new hive. A few days later, I placed 2 frames of capped brood an nurse bees in the weak hive. Each day I monitored the robbing activity and all robbing efforts were focused on the fake hive with the sugar water. There was no robbing on the weak hive that had been moved.

Since this all took place, I no longer have any robbing in the weak hive and my queen is laying eggs in every available cell. Thank you again for your help Wally.