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  • Combine Vs egg gifting

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #11063  by Yorkbees84
 03 Jun 2021, 14:44
Dear All,
After a hectic May of swarming from a very healthy, large colony that couldn't wait until my first April inspection to decide to instigate swarming, I now have 3 colonies (Original, captured swarm and an insurance split I did when it was all going off). My two new colonies (swarm and split) are now Queen right (eggs and healthy larvae) , yippeeee! However, my original colony has no eggs that I can see but is still a large colony of bees spread across a 14x12 brood box and 2 supers. So, which option is best going forward:
1. I combine one of my smaller colonies with the original but risk them deciding there are too many bees/too little space again.
2. Gift a frame of eggs to the parent colony and hope there's time for them to raise a new queen and sell a spare nucleus hive either this year or next (I only want 2 colonies -back garden beekeeper)
3. Do both - gift a frame of eggs for now, wait and see who does best by winter and combine if necessary.

I'm leaving it until the weekend to take action, as we've had sun for 7 days now and I'd expect if there was an active Queen in the original hive, she would have followed the same pattern as the other two and be laying by now ...

What does everyone think?
PS. Second year of bee keeping and still learning!
 #11064  by Patrick
 03 Jun 2021, 17:07
As ‘90s popsters Olive pointed out “You’re not alone” .

Unfortunately it seems a number of virgin queens failed to get mated in May so many beekeepers are unclear whether they are very delayed in coming into lay or genuinely queenless. You really need to know which, so a test frame will tell you in just a few days.

If they raise a few emergency queen cells then at least you know. I would knock those back and unite using my insurance colony. Gets you back on track quickly, takes advantage of your increasingly ageing foragers and able to salvage some summer flow.
 #11065  by AdamD
 04 Jun 2021, 10:38
Agree - test frame will reveal all. It will also significantly reduce the possibility of laying workers developing if the colony happens to be queenless. If queencells are drawn within a few days, then you can unite.

Unless your bees are particularly swarmy, uniting to make a large colony should not cause a 2021 queen to swarm.