Queen - now or later?

[nubee 61]

After a very long round of swarming and re hiving i have ended up with two Q- colonies one is in a poly nuc box and the other which is quite a weak colony(not many bees) in a national 14x12. My question is do i try to re queen one of them before i unite or do it after?
i have a spare brood box in which to transfer the frames from the nuc box so that i can do the news paper method to unite.
any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Polyanwood]

The main thing is that you need to be absolutely sure of whether each nuc is queenright or not before you combine. Virgin queens are notoriously difficult to spot. More often than not new beekeepers say they are queenless when they are not.

Do you have a buddy who will give you a frame of eggs so that you can put in a test frame, so that you can be sure whether they are Q -?

If you combine them and they both have virgins, you risk a swarm.

If you combine and there is one queen already and you buy a mated queen in, it will be your mated queen who will get killed in the ensuing queen fight.

 

[Poly Hive]

It is actually pretty rare to end up queenless.

If in doubt check with a test frame.

PH

 

[mbc]

Thirded