Joining brood boxes

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stramorebees

New Bee
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
Messages
22
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0
Location
Ireland
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
5
Hi all. I think I have caused carnage today at a hive! I performed an AS in mid April. All went well, but very bad weather stopped the queen form being mated.
I spoke to a few beeks & they said that I should probably reunite the hives. I had a liik through the original hive (where the fresh frames & original queen was, & she is laying away, but only really working on 3 frames. The other hive has no brood at all & no virgin queen can be seen anywhere.

I used the news paper methid to join the 2 hives & hopefully make 1 strong colony. All went ok until I closed the hive & the flying bees tried to enter the hive. The gard bees didn't accept the incoming bees & they killed each other at the enterance.

I smoked the hive & blew icing sugar through the varroa floor, thinking this would calm them down. I don't think theres as much fighting now, but I feel like I have done something majorly worng!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Can you explain what you did with each brood box as it is unclear.
 
Stramore... sorry to say it after the event, I would have waited till night (well late evening) to unite would have used a strong sugar spray not syrup but the strongest sprayable, scented with Vanila esscence in both hives, spray both count 20 sheet of sprayed paper and so on and then as you have done... would also consider a frame of eggs in the NQ hive? I dont know how strong either is but.. worth a thought. Tiz done now so fingers crossed and hope for the best... good luck!!
 
I opened the AS hive (containing the old queen & new frames) & she has brrod on 3 frames, but very little of the remaining frames drawn out. I then opened the original brood box that was placed about 4 feet away & containing the uncapped queen cells & remaining brood (4 weeks ago at this stage) & found several opened queen cells, no brood or eggs at all. I had a good look through the hive & couldn't find a virgin queen anywhere.

A beekeeper advised me to join the hives, because the bad weather has probably stopped the queen being mated.

I placed the newspaper above the Queen + hive, then added the 2nd brood box, then the excluder & 2 supers.

When the flying bees entered the hive, the fighting began. I hope this is a bit easier to understand.
 
It is clearer but i am going to stand (or sit) by my answer... However jsut going to add GOOD LUCK with the upcoming weather...!!! strewf...
 
You may yet have carnage. You have only mentioned not seeing a queen in that colony. Have you confirmed this with a test frame?

Apart from that the normal way to unite is in the evening, after all the flying bees are at home, so there is minimum disruption at the entrance.

A bit late now for going back as far as the fighting is concerned, but if there is a queen in the other half, you could lose your laying queen. Your decision on what to do.

An A/S a month ago is not a long time this year for new queens to come into lay - you say 'mid April' and we could say we are now into 'mid May'.

Hope it works, but am not convinced it will.

RAB
 
an alternative would have been getting one hive used to a back facing entrance and then uniting by paper but with a rear facing entrance eke between boxes.
 
4 weeks ago your split had uncapped queen cells. They were 9+ days from hatching so your earliest virgin would be up to 19 days old now. Not that old, and it is very common that it takes 3-4 weeks for a virgin to come into lay. However you had left several queen cells. So you may have lost a cast or two and your virgin could be a week or so younger.

But you have united them so will probably have only one surviving queen by now.

Live and learn, eh?!

It is always worth working out the timing and not assuming that queens have been lost. The test frame would have shown you. Also, queen-right splits polish cells in the centre of the brood nest area in preparation for laying - you can usually tell days in advance when a queen is going to come into lay.

Gavin
 
Stramore bees,
you are not alone in being impatient in waiting for queens to start laying. In all cases reading books and being sure before taking action would be a good thing. the advice you were given to unite when a young queen was entirely possible to be present was not good. Virgins can be difficult to find. They are not as big as mature queens.

Leave for a week before opening up to see what has happened. You might be lucky.
 
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