Three hives, two queens and one new bee.

[Bevbee]

Planning to inspect tomorrow .i have 3 hives - one enormous colony one doing ok colony and one small and struggling colony )

I suspect that I will find the enormous colony queenless tomorrow ( think that I killed her a few weeks ago - when she was a virgin and her mother before that - long story..............)

If my suspicions are correct can I combine the small colony (that has a decent laying queen )with the enormous one ( no queen)- using newspaper to separate them until they are used to each other ?

Thanks in anticipation

 

[drex]

Yes you can, but first you need to make sure the hive is queen less. It is very rare that a hive ends up hopelessly queen less. If you did squish her a few weeks ago, they will have made another. Depending on timing that replacement could be virgin, so there would be no evidence of her presence (eggs). Depends what you see when you open up, but I would use a test frame before pronouncing whether or not I had a queen.

 

[Eyeman]

Test frame is the order of the day

 

[enrico]

I am with t,others
E

 

[Bevbee]

Thank you all.

About to go in now - If I still think that enormous hive is queenless after I inspect- I will add a frame of eggs and check again next week.

If I see QCs on that frame next week - then I will combine the hives ( after removing the QCs) - if not I will wait longer.

 

[Swarm]

Before uniting with a 'small and struggling colony', I'd ask why is it small and struggling? You say it has a decent laying queen but this doesn't sound right if they are struggling.