BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • Uniting in 1 box?

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #8069  by Liam
 30 Jun 2020, 13:20
AdamD wrote:
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).
Thanks, I will give this a go, I’d rather keep as many bees as I can in the hive where I want them.
 #8072  by Patrick
 30 Jun 2020, 16:59
As I habitually do vertical splits with the top box entrance at 90 degrees to the original, I echo Nigel’s experience post combining to the original bottom entrance.

It’s actually quite comic - they persist to fly to the old entrance but almost immediately trudge off in the direction of the “new to them” entrance. I wonder whether they pick up a pheromone trail.

I must say the 3ft / 3 mile rule has often been riden roughshod over without the world coming to an end.