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  • Uniting in 1 box?

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #8019  by Patrick
 27 Jun 2020, 16:13
Either works Simon. I don’t bother to interleave as it takes longer, is more disruptive to the bees and feels a bit contrived to me. Also combs are rarely perfectly parallel so high points may coincide and it’s more faff. Also combining a broodless with brooded part would mean the brood nest is broken up. Frankly, bar the smoke / air freshener the quicker and less faff the better to get the roof back on and let normal services resume.

All that being said, occasionally you can come back the next day to find a small pile of dead bees out the front. But not in the two times I have seen it enough to be fatal to the hive. And if you hadn’t done it, sometimes often those same bees would be doomed anyway, hence why you are doing it.

So it is not an operation that is totally foolproof, but what beekeeping job ever is? :) :D
 #8029  by nealh
 28 Jun 2020, 12:08
Airfreshner is it safe to use with honey in the hive ?
I suppose lily of the glade honey could be a best seller !!!
 #8031  by NigelP
 28 Jun 2020, 12:31
Is smoke safe to use in a hive with honey?
Below is a list of some of the nasties found in wood smoke.
Carbon Monoxide, Benzene, acetic acid, formic acid, sulphur dioxide. Aldehydes found in wood smoke include formaldehyde, acrolein, propionaldehyde, butyraldehyde, acetaldehyde, and furfural. Alkyl benzenes found in wood smoke include toluene. Oxygenated monoaromatics include guaiacol, phenol, syringol and catechol. Numerous PAHs or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found in smoke. Plus we know from some of the show judges that honey can be contaminated with smoke.
Yet we all use it without giving it much thought.
 #8034  by Liam
 28 Jun 2020, 15:02
if using air freshener and you have a few hives, would this increase the chances of the bees not being able to reorientate themself to the correct hive?. I guess, if using newspaper and it took two days, they have a better chance of staying in the correct hive?.
 #8035  by NigelP
 28 Jun 2020, 17:17
Liam, usual guideline for uniting is to have both colonies next to each before putting together as one.
Or move one of the colonies from a totally different apiary site.
 #8037  by Liam
 28 Jun 2020, 19:32
NigelP wrote:
28 Jun 2020, 17:17
Liam, usual guideline for uniting is to have both colonies next to each before putting together as one.
Or move one of the colonies from a totally different apiary site.
I have only ever re-united cast swarms at the moment. Could you advise or point me in the right direction of how to combine hives that are all reasonably close. I know the method but im struggling to find info on combining when 3 hives are close by. Im guessing I could slowly move a hive to the location of the hive I want to combine with?, or totally remove the hive I want to combine for a few days and bring it back to the location of the hive i want to combine with?
 #8050  by NigelP
 29 Jun 2020, 09:22
Liam, if they are close by don't worry about moving, just unite. The bees will soon find their way into their new hive. Might be a little confused.com for a day or so but they will re-orientate to their new location quite quickly.
If you have three hives, nothing to stop you doing all three in one go.

It's similar to throwing out a hive of laying workers. When they find their original hive is not their they look for another hive close by and enter it.
 #8060  by Liam
 29 Jun 2020, 17:43
NigelP wrote:
29 Jun 2020, 09:22
Liam, if they are close by don't worry about moving, just unite. The bees will soon find their way into their new hive. Might be a little confused.com for a day or so but they will re-orientate to their new location quite quickly.
If you have three hives, nothing to stop you doing all three in one go.

It's similar to throwing out a hive of laying workers. When they find their original hive is not their they look for another hive close by and enter it.
Thanks, I am going to unite two hives and just a little concerned they may just fly into the hive I dont want them in. I will probably use the idea of putting leafy greens and branches around the entance and hope they remember.
 #8062  by NigelP
 29 Jun 2020, 18:48
It's worth an explanation as to why bees can sometimes return to their old hive position. They remember 2 journeys; the way to a particular patch of forage and the journey back to their hive. If you move a hive (or even turn it 45 degrees) the bees will immediately re-orientate to their new position and begin learning new journeys to forage from their new position or entrance direction. It’s when they forage on the same patch as before that the earlier dominant return journey memory kicks in and they end up back at original hive site. Hence the three mile rule....which in reality can be much shorter.
I had a classic example of this dominant return journey memory last year where I turned a hive 45 degrees. Usually after a bit of initial confusion they get used to their new entrance direction and new foraging routes. But in this case there was an enormous area of brambles about ¼ of a mile away which I knew they were working. For the next few week there was constant stream of returning foragers going to the old entrance position. But they soon took it in their stride…..after landing they now immediately scurried around the side to their new entrance. It was a very noticeable trait that died out after about 3 weeks. I should have filmed it...
I don’t think twigs and branches at the entrance do much to alter the return memory of the bees. And if hives have been moved such that there are non at old position they will work their ways into any nearby hives they can find.
 #8066  by AdamD
 30 Jun 2020, 09:41
If you need to unite colonies that are not too far apart, you can do a slow apiary dance and move them up to 3 feet per day until they are where you want them so that when you unite them, bees from both stocks will return to the hive you want rather than the wrong one. However returning foragers are usually accepted in any hive (they have food to give, after all).