How do I merge two colonies into one?

[Beardy Weirdy]

Hi All,

I have caught four swarms over the last month and of those I have only seen a queen in two of the hives. One of which I managed to catch and mark. These hives are a little aggressive and when I inspect the hives, the worker bees fan and are rather noisy. However, only one of these hives has produced any brood and that seems to be a small number of Drone cells.

In the other two hives, the bees are storing nectar and pollen. They are drawing out a small amount of comb, but there are no brood cells. These bees are quiet and docile and don't seem to have much purpose in their lives. So, I'm thinking that two of the colonies are queenless and at some point, I need to merge them with one of the Queen right colonies.

What is the best way to do this? Also, is it possible to merge three colonies together as the three that I'm thinking of are all rather small?

Thank you for your help.

 

[MikeWade]

Check each of the suspected quuenless one carefully incase there are virgin queens in. Also check to one with a little drone brood in to make sure it's not a laying worker (Multiple eggs in cells). Then place a couple of sheets of new paper on the top of the queenright colony. On top of there paper place a queen excluder and on top of that the first quuenless brood box. Close up the stack and leave for a few days. Then repeat for the other quuenless brood box.

 

[drex]

I thought that you could unite bees from three or more colonies just by chucking them all in together and they would not fight. No need for paper. Of course make sure there is one queen only. I do this when making up nucs occasionally and seem to have no problem

 

[Beardy Weirdy]

Thank you Both,

I have seen both methods on Youtube but thought that it would be a good idea to ask advice on this forum before doing something that I may regret later. I will certainly have to thoroughly inspect these hives and check for virgin queens before I do anything. So I'll give these hives until Sunday and inspect again.

It seems like every time I inspect, something has happened within the hives that produces more questions than answers.

Another question if I may. I have a cast colony that was originally very small, about the size of a fist. However, since putting this colony into a NUC, the size of the colony has doubled if not trebled. Is it possible that bees from the queenless colonies are voluntarily joining this colony because it has a queen?

 

[masterBK]

You can unite several swarms hived in seprate boxes together at one time (have in the past put 5 castes together). This saves having to find loads of queens as queens are better at finding and killing queens than humans. After a couple of weeks or so when you find brood, shake them all down to one box containing the frames of brood and super it. Later when you find the queen replace it with something decent. The tendency to caste seems to have a genetic basis so rarely keep queens from unknown small swarms.

Flying Bees from a queenless colony will indeed join a nearby one with a queen (they also will abscond from a colony collapsing from Varroa and Nosema and join adjacent colonies). Queenless stocks sometimes get requeened naturally by queens drifting on their return from on orientation/mating flights.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

sounds to me like a bunch of casts swarms waiting for the virgin queens to mate. Not queenless at all

 

[MikeWade]

If going to the 3 into 1 at the same time personally I'd cage the queen for a day to make sure she's ok.

 

[Beardy Weirdy]

Thanks, everyone for the guidance and information. I've just done another hive inspection and sure enough, the one Queen that I have been able to mark is strong and the colony numbers have increased again. The other big colony, no Queen spotted, but plenty of bees, capped honey, pollen, and nectar but no eggs. So possibly I have still got a queen or she was lost on her mating flight.

The third and fourth colonies, colony three have capped drone cells, very little nectar, very little pollen, and no capped honey at all. Also no sign of a Queen. Four is about the same. So, Sunday I think that I will merge the strong Queen right colony with one of the Queenless colonies. Then merge the dubious strong colony with the other weak colony and give them a week or so to sort themselves out. I'll have a Queen Bee dealer on speed dial just in case. Who said beekeeping was relaxing!