Merging questions

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Woodland bees

House Bee
***
Joined
Sep 24, 2016
Messages
150
Reaction score
18
Location
Devon
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
6
Can I just check a couple of things about merging hives?

1) Can I merge a queenless hive with a hive that has a very young queen - one that has only been laying for a few days? If not, how long should I wait?

2) If I want to dispatch a queen in the other hive do I kill her and merge right away? (This might be a daft question but I've only merged a hive that's been queenless for several weeks, so no eggs or larvae).

Thank you.
 
Personally I would wait till some brood was capped.
Kill queen. Prepare both hives. Merge in evening when bees stopped flying is what I do.
 
your choice is, unite immediately after killing the old queen or after the colony is hopelessly queenless.
Personally I would wait until the new queen was laying well - at least with capped brood or better still when her brood starts emerging.
 
Personally I would wait till some brood was capped.
Kill queen. Prepare both hives. Merge in evening when bees stopped flying is what I do.

Thanks, the queen that is being kept is a new queen raised by an existing colony. So, there's currently capped brood and larvae from the old Q but the new Q hasn't started laying yet.

I was going to wait for her to be laying well, so should I wait a bit longer for her brood to also be capped?
 
Thanks, the queen that is being kept is a new queen raised by an existing colony. So, there's currently capped brood and larvae from the old Q but the new Q hasn't started laying yet.

I was going to wait for her to be laying well, so should I wait a bit longer for her brood to also be capped?

Yes.
 

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