failed unite - more aggro

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patl

New Bee
Joined
Jun 6, 2011
Messages
40
Reaction score
0
Location
Bromley
Hive Type
14x12
Number of Hives
2
So, the background. I want to combine a nuc with another small hive and last Friday moved them into a brood box in preparation but while picking up the queen to kill her, managed to knock her off the frame (or so I thought as I thought I'd seen her fall from the frame and couldn't see her on any frame afterwards).
I went back today, expecting to find either the queen or queen cells and prep to unite this evening, why is it never that simple? Went through the frames umpteen times and couldn't find the queen or queen cells, I also see no eggs, only tiny larvae consistent with them being made queenless last Friday.
As there are no queen cells, they evidently think that they have a queen so the only options I see are:
1) shake off the bees and introduce the frames straight into the new hive. Remove the old hive and let the flying bees find homes where they can. The problem I foresee is that I'd be introducing 3 frames of brood into a hive that only has 4 brood frames, so I'd be worried they wouldn't have the resources, but then I'd guess there's only a total of about one side of a frame of unsealed brood, the rest is sealed, so maybe it isn't as important that the target hive doesn't have as many nurse bees.
2) Go ahead with the unite and rely on the queen excluder keeping the queens apart (if there is one in the donor hive)
I should add that I'm now out of brood boxes so my only other thought of moving the brood above a queen excluder, waiting for the nurse bees to follow then uniting the result is a non-starter.
Any suggestions? :sos:
 
I think I understand you. You think you may still have two queens in each of the hives you want to combine but one of them is not laying and they have made no queen cells so she may not be there. If that is the one in the nuc you only have a few frames to go through. Have one more check for the queen, if you still can't find her just go for the combine. If you are wrong and there is a queen then they will fight it out if the hives are small. I would use the air freshener combine. A quick squirt in each hive and put all the frames in one brood box. Close up and see what happens. Do you have any other hives besides the two you are thinking of combining?
E
 
Thanks for the response, I'm kind of getting to the same thought.

Do you have any other hives besides the two you are thinking of combining?
E

Yes, another 2, but one of those has just been requeened, so I want to leave well alone for a while and the other I'm hoping for some honey from if a summer flow ever arrives, so I'd prefer not to weaken it at this stage if possible.
 

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