Installed new nuc, I have questions

I just installed a new nuc to my hive yesterday evening. It didn’t quite go as smoothly as I would have liked becausethere were a huge number of bees. I’ve installednucs before and this one was so crammed full of bees they couldn’t all fit inside at night. I noticed this the night before and didn’t realized why there were bees still outside the box at night. This made it very tricky to get ahold of the frames to move them. Then we had a big storm come through last night. Only a few hours after moving them.

I went out this morning there is a small gob of bees still on the nuc and very little activity outside the new hive, now there is a bunch just flying aroud and going back in, only a few actuallyleaving the are… I really don’t want to mess with them more but I’m concerned why there are still bees on the nuc box. I knew there were some in it that didn’t shift with the frames but I would have thought this morning they would all be moved to the new hive. Is this something I should be concerned about or are they just waiting to get dried off and warmed up to find their way home. I’m not brand new st bees but I know I have more to learn and haven’t had this issue before.

Hi Eyvette, the reason for the small glob of bee could be because the queen is among them. Simply gently place the glob of bees at the entrance. Then they will march straight in. You might be able to gently break them up to see if the queen is there, for curiosity sake.

This happened to me on a number of occasions, & every time it was because the queen was among them. They weren’t on the frames as you’d expect. They were on the insides of the boxes. Even though I placed the empty boxes on top of the new hives, the queens still remained inside the empty boxes with a bunch of attendants. It was just a matter of placing the globs on top of the frames, under the roofs…

Now, whenever I transfer a colony without spotting the queen, I always check the empty hive walls, where I’ll sometimes find the queen.

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