merging two colonies - how?

[alice-edmund]

My wife managed to collect and house a swarm about 8 weeks ago (while I was away) into an old cardboard archive box which has continued to sit in the middle of the lawn with a plastic tablecloth over it. Clearly lots of comb etc in there now (but I can't really inspect it). I've got three other Langstroth hives. Any suggestions as to how to merge the archive box bees (and ideally wild comb/brood if I can get it off the cardboard lid) into one of the other hives?
(The archive box made a really good emergency hive for a swarm by the way and my missus had never done anything with bees before)

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

when you say merge, do you mean unite the swarm with another colony or just move them into an empty hive? Whatever, the first thing you need to do is get the swarm onto frames.

 

[SussexBea]

you can tie the comb into empty frames using rubber bands stretched around the frames holding the comb. Just make sure the comb is the right way up though.

 

[alice-edmund]

Yes - I meant unite, all the other hives do already have colonies/brood in - though none of them are 'huge'. I could probably get the wild comb fixed into some Langstroth super frames. I'm not good at spotting queens though if that matters

 

[andyphibb]

you would have to kill one of the Q's ( the swarm one i would) get them into a super on frames on there own for a few days let them settle in then dispatch the Q give them a few more days place news paper with pin holes in on top of the hive you are going to unite them with make sure you tape any joins in the paper tho then place the swarm on top ( knock down any queen cells on the swarm if any are present) good luck. I have tried a different method by using 2 layers of fly mesh with a 15mm gap between and that has worked well for us.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I'm not good at spotting queens though if that matters

Unfortunately it matters a lot - you'll have to kill one of the queens before the unite