beginning of knowledge

[bill]

I have heard it said that the beginning of knowledge is when you realize you don't know anything. That is where I stand at ther moment. I got my two queens and tried to establish nucs. One of them got robbed and taken over by the little swarm I got. However the queen had not got out of her cage yet so I saved her. The other one had a lot of bees when I put the queen in, but this morning, I was going to release the queen, and there were only a hand full of bees left crowded around a little bit of brood so I decided to start all over again as soon as I get over the disapointment. abut I can see that nuc building is a more exacting science that I don't quite have the hang of yet. The swarm is doing great which is the only plus, and they have a lot of stores that I took out of the nucs. I will requeen them this year so I dont get all swarming genes in the population, I dont think I would recognize a queen with no paint so I will find her with a queen excluder when I have a little more experience. I wish I had talked to finsky before I started he gave some real good instructions about keeping robbers out of nucs but I didnt read it till it was too late. Thanx anyway Finsky. I will be real happy if I can get one good nuc going out of the two queens. I keep telling myself that at least I have a new hive that will probably make honey this year, but I am still in the depths of despair