Mixing bees from 3+ colonies

bjosephd · Apr 19, 2017

So I've heard Mike Palmer say that if you make up a box shaking bees from 3 or more colonies then they won't kill each other.

Have many experienced this? I trust Mike Palmer, but am also terrified of watching carnage unfold before my eyes...

...and how quickly do you need to get the 3rd colony in?

Thinking of trying to make up a kind of queen rearing nuc. (ie from multiple hives so as not to take the vigour from one single hive too much)

Finman · Apr 19, 2017

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Queen rearing does not succeed in a nuc. And shook bees return to their homes in same apiary.

If you wait that some if your hives start to swarm, move good larvae into the swarming cells. You get fat queens. But all depends from which hive you take the food quality larvae.

Erichalfbee · Apr 19, 2017

bjosephd said:
So I've heard Mike Palmer say that if you make up a box shaking bees from 3 or more colonies then they won't kill each other.

Have many experienced this? I trust Mike Palmer, but am also terrified of watching carnage unfold before my eyes...

...and how quickly do you need to get the 3rd colony in?

Thinking of trying to make up a kind of queen rearing nuc. (ie from multiple hives so as not to take the vigour from one single hive too much)

Mike is right though you can even more easily make up a two frame nuc if you have drawn comb and a poly nuc box. One frame emerging brood, one frame stores then three frames drawn comb. Add queen or queen cell. When the brood has emerged swap food and brood combs round.

pargyle · Apr 19, 2017

If you want to make up a Nuc then you can take frames of brood and the attendant Nurse bees from three or more separate hives and put them together in a Nuc .. they won't fight but if there are foragers on the frames they will return to their original hive so you have to make sure they have frames of stores in the nuc as well as brood frames. If you are not transferring a queen into the Nuc then you need to make sure they have the means to make one (fresh eggs or very young larvae).

Teemore · Apr 28, 2017

I have been doing this over the past few years. Has been mentioned on this forum before now. I make up a nuc in one apiary for movement to another. Open the hives from which you want to harvest the bees, find and cage the queens and then go back and lift one or more frames of bees and emerging brood from 3+ colonies, possibly shaking in a fee extra young bees too. It is good to have a helper to put the crownboard back on the nuc/hive as you add frames of bees and emerging brood to it and similarly to had frames of foundation to the donor hives and close them up behiond you. Space the frames out as you add them, at least until you add the bees and emerging brood from the third colony. its rare to see the bees react aggressively to each other when you do this "combination".
Before you start to make up nuc/hives in this way, be certain that your donor colonies are disease free.
It is easy to create super strong cell starter colonies in this manner. i'll leave it to the individual beekeeper to determine what size of colony is strong enough to successfuly raise and nurture one or more new queens.