Got my nuc yesterday and moved them over into their new home.
A bit nervous as I didn’t see the queen. I also was a frame short (thought I get a 5 frame nuc but it was only 4) so I went back in to today to add the other frame and to have another go at finding the queen - still no luck.
How long should I wait until I go back in to see if there is any activity that would point me to the queen being alive and doing her job?
When I went to check on them this afternoon I found lots of them buzzing in front of the hive but not going in or landing, just hanging out there or crawling over the front of the box.
https://youtu.be/Qm_1hrE2qbo
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I would give them a week, unless your nuc supplier gave a different requirement. In a week, even if you can’t see eggs, if you have early uncapped brood, you likely have a queen. However, if you see a supersedure queen cell or an emergency queen cell, you probably don’t. If you don’t know what those look like, have a read of this excellent document:
http://www.wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/There-Are-Queen-Cells-In-My-Hive-WBKA-WAG.pdf
Meanwhile, don’t panic. If you were slow and gentle, everything is probably fine.
One of my nucs did a lot of that this year too. Lots of bees doing orientation flights (large figure 8 circles) in front of the hive, but not much foraging. The other got right down to it within an hour or so. I guess they are all a little different.
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