Having performed a Pagden when I found swarming signs in my only hive I ended up with the old queen and some frames of brood and stores in a spare brood box.
As the spare brood box was a bit low on bees it was suggested to me that I move some bees from the original hive to the spare brood box. Following some advice I moved bees from a (full) super via a clearer board into a super with just a couple of frames in it. This super I then placed on top of a single sheet of newspaper on the spare brood box that had the old queen in it. I used a plastic queen excluder on top of the paper, and knocked a couple of small holes in the newspaper.
When I checked a couple of days later I found lots of dead bees on top of the newspaper, dead bees stuck in the queen excluder and no holes in the newspaper beyond those I had made. I made a few more holes and left them to it for another day or so. Again more dead bees and almost no paper chewed by the bees. By then I decided that if they hadn't adapted to the queen's pheromones by now they were never going to so removed the newspaper - at which point I saw yet more dead bees in the bottom of the brood box. I guesstimate that I lost at least 50% of the bees I was trying to unite.
Given that this is such a tried and trusted method and that I did it 'by the book' what could have gone wrong??
As the spare brood box was a bit low on bees it was suggested to me that I move some bees from the original hive to the spare brood box. Following some advice I moved bees from a (full) super via a clearer board into a super with just a couple of frames in it. This super I then placed on top of a single sheet of newspaper on the spare brood box that had the old queen in it. I used a plastic queen excluder on top of the paper, and knocked a couple of small holes in the newspaper.
When I checked a couple of days later I found lots of dead bees on top of the newspaper, dead bees stuck in the queen excluder and no holes in the newspaper beyond those I had made. I made a few more holes and left them to it for another day or so. Again more dead bees and almost no paper chewed by the bees. By then I decided that if they hadn't adapted to the queen's pheromones by now they were never going to so removed the newspaper - at which point I saw yet more dead bees in the bottom of the brood box. I guesstimate that I lost at least 50% of the bees I was trying to unite.
Given that this is such a tried and trusted method and that I did it 'by the book' what could have gone wrong??