. Capt Ken Black wrote                                                          
>Hi Roy and everyone else, I have already send details of this post to the      
>list but I'm not sure if it got to you all, can someone out there confirm I    
>am posting?                                                                    
                                                                                
>I used some bees from a local swarm and made up mini nucs before going to      
>collect the virgins. About 1.5 hrs later I slipped them in to the closed       
>mini nuc boxes, on checking this morning 8:00am the nucs are still roaring!    
>I haven't released the bees yet.                                               
>Any advice on what I am doing wrong and perhaps a better method.               
>                                                                               
>24 hours later UPdate:                                                         
>Bees have now been released, I will check tonight to see if the virgins are    
>still around, it looks like one lot have left their box and joined another     
>around 6ft away. I have made some more minis up this time I found that         
>taking young bees from the top super on a queen right colony works better as   
>presumably these bees are relatively young.                                    
                                                                                
This is a problem with the list one day your question will raise lots of        
answers, the next, nothing! It feels like working in a vacuum.                  
        I believe your first mistake was using bees from a swarm to make the    
mini nucs. These bees are unsettled and looking for a home complete with        
queen, any port in a storm attitude. So the first virgin or queen out and       
it's off we go, especially if you get lots of bees fanning with their           
'Nasanov' glands. To give you an idea of how bees travel. Last year I made      
up 4 mini nucs, all from the same hive, gave each one a cell emerging at        
different times. The first one out got all the bees, the remaining cells        
were deserted, failed to emerge. Strangely enough that virgin failed to         
mate. Then customers of ours complain about the price of queens!!               
        Secondly, to make mini nucs requires various ages of bees. Provided     
that original top super has brood, then there is a good chance of getting       
bees of all age groups.                                                         
        Finally, contrary to popular view, young virgin queens will feed        
themselves, we have watched them do it. It is only when the queen is mated      
that she seems to rely on her entourage for food.                               
        Hope this answers your questions, if not please try again.              
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
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