Luscious queens and micro-colonies

My Old Sol queen arrived today, so what better time to try out our new western nucs?  The majority of my hives are all westerns, meaning I use western hive boxes for both brood and honey supers.  The problem with this system (only ONE of many according to deep fans) is that standard deep nucs are useless if we want to make splits or keep a queen on reserve. 

First I made triple-sure the queen wasn't on a frame I was taking from the existing colony.  Look at that Italian queen.  Large and slow and sexy (isn't beekeeping great?).  You wait right here, ma'am.

I pulled a few frames of solid capped brood covered with nurse bees, shook a couple frames of extra bees in for good measure, added a frame of honey and pollen, and placed the queen cage. 

The western nuc!  And just like that, one colony becomes two, and I have a premium queen on reserve if I need her.