Some observations two days after newspaper unite.

[user 20297]

I placed a Q+ hive above a hopelessly Q- hive two days ago. These had previously been separated about a month ago after I saw swarm preparations; so technically, this was a re-unite.

The bees are through the paper and the hive entrance is much busier, but, unless something else has hit them, there appears to have been some fighting and a few deaths of bees.
The foragers who've been moved are making their way back to where their home used to be and seem mainly to be being allowed into the next nearest hive; I suspect that its population has seen a noticeable increase.

As with all things bee-related, I'm sure all will settle down, but it's been interesting seeing at first hand that even a simple manipulation such as this one has aspects to it that aren't immediately obvious to a novice beekeeper.

 

[enrico]

It sounds as though the bees got through the paper too quick. Did you make holes in it? I never do. I always get bees back at the original site if they be through paper quickly
Next time do it with air freshener and let us know your thoughts

 

[Boston Bees]

I placed a Q+ hive above a hopelessly Q- hive two days ago. These had previously been separated about a month ago after I saw swarm preparations; so technically, this was a re-unite.

The bees are through the paper and the hive entrance is much busier, but, unless something else has hit them, there appears to have been some fighting and a few deaths of bees.
The foragers who've been moved are making their way back to where their home used to be and seem mainly to be being allowed into the next nearest hive; I suspect that its population has seen a noticeable increase.

As with all things bee-related, I'm sure all will settle down, but it's been interesting seeing at first hand that even a simple manipulation such as this one has aspects to it that aren't immediately obvious to a novice beekeeper.

Beekeeping, eh?

Don't make holes in the paper? There was a thread the other day about bees that never made it through, and the entire box starved.
Do make holes in the paper? They got through too quick and fought!
Use air freshener? There'll be plenty of times this results in slaughter, and plenty of times it works perfectly

Whatever you do, can go wrong. There are no simple guaranteed-no-problems manipulations. Anytime you see one of the older heads on here claim that their way of doing XXXX always works just fine, just ignore them - they are either looking at the results with rose-tinted spectacles, or just not looking at all. Just mark it down to experience, as you say.

 

[blackcloud]

Beekeepers love making rules for bees to ignore.

 

[user 20297]

It sounds as though the bees got through the paper too quick. Did you make holes in it? I never do. I always get bees back at the original site if they be through paper quickly
Next time do it with air freshener and let us know your thoughts

I didn't make holes in the paper, it didn't get wet, I even taped it to the edges of the excluder to make sure it wasn't rucked or ripped.....that innovation will be the thing I did "wrong".
I have another to do, but this is a smaller pair of colonies. I won't be brave enough to try yet another technique so soon, but for my third try I will certainly go for the air freshener technique. The thing is, if you use air-freshener for "instant" results, the bees get no time at all to think about orienting to their new home.
Thanks for the advice though.

 

[user 20297]

Beekeeping, eh?

Don't make holes in the paper? There was a thread the other day about bees that never made it through, and the entire box starved.
Do make holes in the paper? They got through too quick and fought!
Use air freshener? There'll be plenty of times this results in slaughter, and plenty of times it works perfectly

Whatever you do, can go wrong. There are no simple guaranteed-no-problems manipulations. Anytime you see one of the older heads on here claim that their way of doing XXXX always works just fine, just ignore them - they are either looking at the results with rose-tinted spectacles, or just not looking at all. Just mark it down to experience, as you say.

In beekeeping, from some quarters, there is a degree of insistence that by taking certain approaches in the right circumstances you can hardly fail. When dealing with tens of thousands of my lovely bees I would rather know more about the possibilities, whether bad or good. Having said that, it's really satisfying to be learning for myself, but it's a good job that the small pile of bees, which I shovelled up this morning, can't hear me saying that!

 

[Erichalfbee]

It doesn’t always go to plan. I’ve done dozens of unites through newspaper. One last week resulted in a lot of dead bees. Thankfully the queen was in the top box and survived.

 

[user 20297]

I've done my second newspaper unite now; this time with the queenless half on top and much weaker than the queenright hive. They got through within four days...maybe less. Rather than demolish the newspaper, they just chomped out a few ovals of the queen excluder. there were still a few casulaties below the landing-board, but some of them were possibly stragglers looking for a new home after their hive was removed.

Next time, I'm ready to try air-freshener....not sure the bees are though.

 

[Sutty]

I tried the air freshener when uniting swarms of different ages recently, it seemed to work well.
However I found there were air fresheners & air fresheners! A lot of more modern eco-friendly ones only work spraying upwards which gives us a problem - look for one with a sideways spray. I used a Glade one.

 

[Ian123]

Give them

I've done my second newspaper unite now; this time with the queenless half on top and much weaker than the queenright hive. They got through within four days...maybe less. Rather than demolish the newspaper, they just chomped out a few ovals of the queen excluder. there were still a few casulaties below the landing-board, but some of them were possibly stragglers looking for a new home after their hive was removed.

Next time, I'm ready to try air-freshener....not sure the bees are though.

Don’t rush back in after any unite if you don’t have to, there’s a risk of them balling the queen. It does happen!!!

 

[user 20297]

Give them
Don’t rush back in after any unite if you don’t have to, there’s a risk of them balling the queen. It does happen!!!

Thanks....I'll remember that.....I needed my last spare box back from the bees, having just ordered more from Abelo.
It was such a tiny leftover group of incoming bees, I'm hoping they won't have given trouble.

 

[Antipodes]

I've done my second newspaper unite now; this time with the queenless half on top and much weaker than the queenright hive. They got through within four days...maybe less. Rather than demolish the newspaper, they just chomped out a few ovals of the queen excluder. there were still a few casulaties below the landing-board, but some of them were possibly stragglers looking for a new home after their hive was removed.

Next time, I'm ready to try air-freshener....not sure the bees are though.

I had real trouble with newspaper unites last (dearthy) season. In the end I was (experimentally) spraying the multiple layers of newspaper with air freshener....

 

[JamezF]

I've done my second newspaper unite now; this time with the queenless half on top and much weaker than the queenright hive. They got through within four days...maybe less. Rather than demolish the newspaper, they just chomped out a few ovals of the queen excluder.

That's exactly how my last one went, with colonies in a similar state.

James

 

[Michael Palmer]

I placed a Q+ hive above a hopelessly Q- hive two days ago. These had previously been separated about a month ago after I saw swarm preparations; so technically, this was a re-unite.

Did you move the Q- hive and locate it under the Q+ hive, or did you move the Q+ hive and place it on the Q- hive?

 

[user 20297]

Did you move the Q- hive and locate it under the Q+ hive, or did you move the Q+ hive and place it on the Q- hive?

That's an intriguing question @Michael Palmer, which I'm guessing and hoping, may lead to an interesting reply.
Admittedly, the only tactic I was using was to keep the resulting hive where the Q+ one was at the time. So the smaller, Q- hive was placed on top.
I note that both the Haynes Manual of Beekeeping and the Dave Cushman website both recommend this way in any case. I'm intrigued to know what might be a better approach to this supposedly straightforward and foolproof system.

 

[Sutty]

I've wondered whether exchanging their positions a couple of times before uniting might help to make the colonies smell more similar. That said I've not had problems with the few unites I've done.

 

[Boston Bees]

I've wondered whether exchanging their positions a couple of times before uniting might help to make the colonies smell more similar. That said I've not had problems with the few unites I've done.

Though, if you are unlucky, you might get a queen killed by foragers who return to find a strange queen in their hive

 

[Bazzer]

I didn't make holes in the paper, it didn't get wet, I even taped it to the edges of the excluder to make sure it wasn't rucked or ripped.....that innovation will be the thing I did "wrong".
I have another to do, but this is a smaller pair of colonies. I won't be brave enough to try yet another technique so soon, but for my third try I will certainly go for the air freshener technique. The thing is, if you use air-freshener for "instant" results, the bees get no time at all to think about orienting to their new home.
Thanks for the advice though.

I like to make a lot of very small holes so the scent from the hive below penetrates quickly to the one above but there is very little in the way of an edge for the bees to start chewing through. I have even made myself a "bed of thin nails" tool so I can do this quickly. This solves the fighting issue and generally I am moving from another apiary so reorientation is not a problem. Within the same apiary I would likely push a few sprigs of bruised mint into the entrance so they have another trigger.

 

[Michael Palmer]

That's an intriguing question @Michael Palmer, which I'm guessing and hoping, may lead to an interesting reply.

IMO, the Q+ hive should go on top on its stand. The Q+ bees go down through the paper past the Q- bees. Q+ is safe in the top box in her own cluster and not intruded on by the Q- bees. This way has always worked well for me

 

[user 20297]

IMO, the Q+ hive should go on top on its stand. The Q+ bees go down through the paper past the Q- bees. Q+ is safe in the top box in her own cluster and not intruded on by the Q- bees. This way has always worked well for me

I'll push forward to the future my air-freshener trial and adopt that method next time; I will report back the comparison.