>It seems to me that "shaking them out" has no benefit other than exercising
your arms.  Please correct me if there is evidence.

My experience is that the disruption caused by shaking results in far less fighting.  If you just add a nuc to a laying worker colony then I believe that it is much more likely that there will be a battle - and that probably puts the queen at risk.  I like to shake them out 10-20 feet away, install the nuc quickly and give plenty of smoke.

An alternative is to move the hive to a new site after shaking them out, but then they will only drift to the hive(s) either side of the original position where they will be less welcome.

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html