swarming and uniting?

[flemage]

I united two colony’s Sunday evening Hive 4 with Hive 7.

Both of them on single national no supers. I wish to over winter and continue on double nationals. I couldn’t decide between the queens so I thought I would let them sort it out.

Hive 4 has 7 brood 2-2.5 frames of stores 2 foundation.

Hive 7, 4 brood 1 stores rest foundation. Was an A/S placed into a full brood box as I didn’t have a nuc (have made some since) this one has failed to build up due (to user error) to not making wax due to cold, Full box, OMF, holes in feeder (I have learnt from this have bits of ply to cover feeder holes and will be making full dividers this winter). No signs of any other problems, brood that is there is good.

Any way got to the field went through hives to make sure before completing unite. Hive 4 busting with bees and had made comb through feeder hole.......as said learning from this.

Hive 7, 4 queen cells one capped on face of one frame, no queen could be seen young lava no eggs. On the face of it should be blinding obvious that they had swarmed but there were still for the size of them a lot of bees there (for this hive) so it didn’t look like that to me. Last inspection on 24/7/12 so five days before must have missed them not sure how……. Unless I damaged her.

Any way went away for a while to let settle down and have a think. Went back knocked down queen cells and united.

My question is will the swarming need in the bees of Hive 7 continue or will the queen from hive 4 plus massive change through the unite stop this urge. Basically should I leave them to sort them selves out for a bit or get back in there and check things out?

Sorry for monster history but thought it might be needed.

Thanks Simon

 

[oliver90owner]

I am wondering : Why unite now?

Deciding to overwinter on double brood may well be a bit presumptive. I don't do anything until I see how big the colonies are later in the season. If they cannot be condensed to a 14 x 12 brood it is unusual. The winter cluster will not be any bigger however large the combined colony is now - there is just the one queen laying and all the rest will be dead in a few weeks.

Combining for a larger honey crop is a legitimate reason if there is a flow coming along.

You possibly now have a swarmy queen rather than the possibly better choice of the two and the hive may swarm again before long!

Just in too much of a rush IMO.

RAB

 

[flemage]

Hi Rab

Perhaps your right.

Part of idea was to make best of last of weather to try and a lest get some honey.

Other was I was struggling to find time to look after 10 hives and wanted to down size.

So you think I have now made the lot of them swarmy? Ahh oh well live and learn.

Thanks for info