Another uniting question sorry!

[Brigsy]

I am now in a position where I now have four good colonies as a result of swarm prevention splits from my two original colonies at the beginning of the year.

I only want 2! All have supers of varying degrees as I have been removing when full during the season. So I want to unite back to 2 to leave time for varroa treatment and them sorting themselves out before Autumn. (No one after bees on commercial frames in my association)

I think time is of the essence really.

Plan is to make the two less preferred queenless, then unite an entire hive supers and all on top of the queenright colony. Once they are mingling, make an appropriate number of remaining supers and place the brood boxes on top of each other but with a Q/E between until the remaining brood hatches then remove that.

Any thoughts?

Cheers.

 

[colinc]

That is how to do it then remove frames in spring to get back down to a single box before you need it to split them again. Good luck


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[Brigsy]

Ah thanks. I was planning on taking the top box away when the brood has hatched and spin out any stores so I have empty brood frames ready for demaree next year.

 

[colinc]

Ah thanks. I was planning on taking the top box away when the brood has hatched and spin out any stores so I have empty brood frames ready for demaree next year.

I am on double brood national so hopefully as they are packed with stores and brood nests are reducing in size they will be good this year without me feeding, obviously I will monitor that. I dining need much feeding last year with haired supers that were 3/4 full in autumn. Full 14x12 should be enough with stores so your choice if you remove some honey from them. Should work fine whatever you decide.

 

[Brigsy]

Cheers. I'm on commercials.

 

[Brigsy]

Well, I have taken the now queenless colonies and placed them over newspaper held down with Q/E's this evening.

There were quite a few hundred bees on the floors that didn't make the move and it was impossible to shake them into the moved colonies as they started flying out when I cracked the crown board.

I have had to leave them to it? Is this normal? Probably a few hundred from each hive are now lost and angry.

 

[JWF]

Put a brood box in the original location of the hive you moved - that will give them somewhere to cluster and you can tip them into the hive in or do another unite using a super once the two colonies are combined. Having somewhere to huddle should keep them happier

 

[Brigsy]

Thank you. I shall go back in a bit and see what carnage has occurred.

 

[Brigsy]

Thanks for all the advice. I went back and left a super for the stragglers and then United that on top of the lot. Checked both colonies today and placed them into a correct order. All seems to have gone splendidly.

Will check the queens made it at the weekend.