BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • Another combining question

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #10993  by Shattered
 24 May 2021, 09:49
I see there have been a few posts about combining colonies. This is s different one.

I have a small hive (4-5 frames) which is queenright and looks healthy. I also have another bigger hive with more bees but they swarmed and are currently queenless. Id like to combine the 2 hives but looking for options on how.

I see from posts that the 'weaker' hive goes on top of the newspaper - does this include a queenright hive? Just looking for options on which way round the hives should be, queen on top of the newspaper or below?!!
 #10994  by AdamD
 24 May 2021, 10:43
Hi Shattered, welcome to the forum.
My first question has to be how are you certain that the swarmed colony is queenless? A colony will usually swarm leaving the parent colony with the ability to make a queen so the possibility that there's a virgin in there is quite high.

My suggestion is to put in a frame of brood and eggs from your queenright hive and see if queencells are drawn. Then decide what to do. You can always give the frame back after a few days.

A test frame will stop a queenless colony from developing laying workers due to brood pheromone so if a colony has been queenless or suspected queenless for a while, it's not a bad thing to put in.
 #10995  by Caroline
 24 May 2021, 10:49
Hi, welcome to the forum.

First, let us discuss your larger colony.
You say the colony swarmed and is queenless. The first question is 'are you sure'? If a colony swarms, they have usually raised queen cells. Is this what happened? Virgin queens can be difficult to spot, and may take longer than the anticipated 3 weeks to start laying eggs. If time has elapsed and the colony appears not to have a queen, I would suggest adding a test frame with eggs from your smaller colony. If they are queenless they will raise queen cell(s).

I am assuming from your posting that these two hives are your only ones. I would be inclined to let the larger colony raise a queen cell (if they are queenless), allowing you to retain both. The smaller colony has time to build-up before the winter.

As far as uniting using the newspaper method, I have done it both ways with queen-right colony on the top or the bottom, I find it makes little difference. For me, I would put the smaller colony on top as it would be lighter to lift (bad back!).

Good luck.
 #10997  by Shattered
 24 May 2021, 12:13
Thanks all, makes sense.

For the "queenless colony", there have been no eggs since 6 April so Im inclined to think she has gone and not left anyone behind!

Ill try and egg swap and see what happens.

If that doesnt, Ill combine. The plan would be to have the 'small hive with queen' on the bottom and the 'big hive without on the top'.

.... and see what happens!