I did want to try the air freshener method but we didn't have any and were tight for time. I am also learning that out-apiaries are no fun compared to garden apiaries - I forget things a lot. Like this time, I forgot the poly block insert for the brood box so there's cardboard in a glove stuffed in the aperture of the Abelo brood box on one hive. I also learned I used a frame feeder as a space-saver for brood frames as I didn't have any available - completely forgot about that. Since I've been neglecting my apiary notes of late, this caught me out. I have noted it now.
So in my out-apiary I am now down to two full hives on double brood, one with 3 supers, the other with 2. Also I have a nuc there that has raised a daughter from a buckfast queen and she's mated. They were incredibly calm. I'm half looking forward to seeing how her colony acts when they're all definitely hers.
At the home apiary I have one full hive currently uniting over newspaper. Unfortunately I saw and killed 3 wasps yesterday. Heavily smoked any corpse left behind in case that let off an attractant to other wasps. I have a tunnel entrance floor on this currently uniting hive and have put two wasp traps up also. Will wasp terrors affect likelihood of successful uniting? Both colonies are of GM buckfast heritage and the nuc has a Becky's Bees Buckfast in there now.
And finally - I fed some honey back to the bees in the maisies nuc feeder. What was left had set into a kind of soft patty. I scraped it out and put it on the top bars of the upper box during uniting. I figured it would be distracting for the bees and that anything that dripped on to the newspaper could only contribute to the unite. I would like to know other people's thoughts on this if possible.