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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Marty Hanks <marty AT justbeenc.com>
  • To: Rachel Franke <rfranke AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] whether to combine a weak hive with a strong one (and how)
  • Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2017 16:52:03 -0400

Hi Rachel,

Great question. After 2.5 weeks the swarm should have shown signs of a laying
queen. Especially with food around & your feeding.

Even under the off chance you got a 2nd swarm from a hive and a new queen the
timing is off.

I like the combine idea, especially with tulip poplars just starting to
produce flower buds. Just remove both feeders, add the newsprint like you
mentioned & put weaker hive on top just at dusk!

Close top vent/opening to 1/4" so air will move, but no bees can escape.
After 2 days, if needed you can add 1 feeder back.

This bigger new colony will produce honey for you this year. You can always
split them in half at end of may.

You will get a little honey & 2 colonies to to go into winter with. The split
should make a new "local to you" queen in 16 days.

Congrats! Id call that a good year. Now if you dont care about honey this
year, then just move a frame of eggs from the package hive & see if they make
queen cells in 3 days. It will confirm either way what that colony has

Cheers
Marty

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 9, 2017, at 4:41 PM, Rachel Franke <rfranke AT gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have a hive doing well, installed from a package 3 weeks ago, and a hive
> a caught swarm 2.5 weeks ago doing ok now but with no sign of a queen (or
> queen cells). I was wondering about combining the weak hive with the strong
> one, and if I do that, how to do it. As I understand a newspaper combine,
> one would usually put the weak colony on top of the strong one with a sheet
> or two of newspaper in between, but I've been using a top feeder on both
> hives. Any suggestions for combining or other options? (I had very bad luck
> last year with introducing bought queens to packages whose queens didn't
> make it, and lost both of those hives by June.)
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Rachel
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