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  • Using the newspaper method to unite bees failed miserably - what could I have done wrong?

  • Beginners forum, ask beekeeping related questions and get help from other experienced beekeepers. Please use the Search Feature please to avoid duplicated threads
Beginners forum, ask beekeeping related questions and get help from other experienced beekeepers. Please use the Search Feature please to avoid duplicated threads
 #515  by BanburyBees
 05 Sep 2018, 21:55
@Steve (The Drone) I have read about the 'lavender' method and using other similar 'sprays' (peppermint, air freshener) and indeed using a peppermint spray is described on the Dave Cushman website.

I might give them a go one day but for the moment I'd just like to get the tried and tested newspaper method to work!
 #517  by Nigel Pringle
 06 Sep 2018, 11:22
"Given that this is such a tried and trusted method and that I did it 'by the book' what could have gone wrong??"

When did you do this unite? During the hot weather?
If so you need some means of ventilation in the top half to stop them overheating. Without access to fresh nectar/water, they have no means of controlling the hive temperature.
Your dead bees are likely to be cooked ones.
At the very least a travel screen to allow heat to escape.
 #550  by DianeBees
 10 Sep 2018, 10:11
I united two colonies this spring with a spray of sugar with a drop of lemongrass oil in. It worked. Not how I'd normally have done things but they were really very small after the prolonged winter.

I've used the newspaper method successfully in the past but have heard from someone I know that it went badly when she tried it. Perhaps staging a practice run on empty kit what errors could occur might be useful.
 #554  by Nigel Pringle
 10 Sep 2018, 19:35
DianeBees wrote:
10 Sep 2018, 10:11
I've used the newspaper method successfully in the past but have heard from someone I know that it went badly when she tried it.
Do you know what time of year she tried it?
In the hot summer with the bees trapped in the top box and no source of water/nectar they die from overheating.
In hot weather, (such as we had this summer) when newspaper uniting, you need to allow ventilation of the top box. Use a travel screen and roof set not flush so there is a through flow of air. Note this only applies in hot weather.
Otherwise, there is little that go wrong with the method apart from the obvious difficulties of trying to get your sheet on in windy conditions :lol:

However, experience has shown me that is quicker and faster and, to date no casualties, to use air freshener unites.
 #559  by DianeBees
 10 Sep 2018, 20:00
Nigel Pringle wrote:
10 Sep 2018, 19:35

Do you know what time of year she tried it?
In the hot summer with the bees trapped in the top box and no source of water/nectar they die from overheating.

There was immediate fighting as I remember - which to me indicated that the newspaper hadn't stayed in place..
I can visualise the photo of her hive on FB but would have to dig through to find what time of year.

I'd always recommend a careful trimming of the excess wax underneath the to-be-top-box before merging as that's a right nuisance to have to deal with once you've started the process.
 #563  by Patrick
 10 Sep 2018, 21:20
DianeBees wrote:
10 Sep 2018, 10:11
. Perhaps staging a practice run on empty kit what errors could occur might be useful.
That is such a good idea for a number of beekeeping manipulations if you are doing it for the first time. Trying to get the gist from a written description you try to remember and then on the day something else goes wrong, the smoker goes out and the bees get fiesty and all of a sudden you make a bit of a pigs ear of it and only afterwards realise you made a bit of a horlicks of it.

I watched a very experienced beekeeper on television putting a hive back together without replacing the queen excluder, with me shouting at the telly. Bit if a Day 1 error, but I would probably have done something even more daft if I was being filmed..
 #571  by Patrick
 11 Sep 2018, 12:53
Sounds a good wheeze Hivelifter.

Apparently if you don’t take a newspaper then you can wave a mobile at them whilst tweeting.. :D

I am a bit cautious about using a sugar solution to spray bees after seeing someone use such a spray enthusiastically to collect bees for stocking nuc’s and turn them into a black sticky mass with an over sugared mix.

If you are going to put sugar in a water sprayer to use on bees it needs to be a very weak solution, with no comparison to feed strength syrup recipes, which is obviously what Diane successfully used. If in doubt I would always use less rather than more.