Unite or leave them

[Mellifera397]

Hi everyone,

I have got a hive with a queen who refuses to lay more than four frames and a new swarm that has five frames of eggs a week and a half after hiving. With the primary aim being getting some honey from the main flow should I unite the two colonies now to give the swarm's queen a big enough worker force for the colony to expand more quickly or leave the two colonies to develop independently?

My other thought is that the swarm is low on stores, i intend to feed them next inspection so I might be able to avoid feeding if I give them the opportunity to use the stores of the established colony which are strong.

Any advice would be appreciated and I realise that I'm not giving loads of info about the colonies so if any extra info is required for advice to be relevant then im happy to reply with extra info.

M

 

[galileo]

I think the first thing I'd do is ascertain the reason for the poor performance of your colony. If it's just a falling Queen then uniting is probably your best option and split back later if you need two colonies from them. However, if the poor performance is due to disease, then uniting is obviously not something you want to be doing.

 

[Mellifera397]

That's a fair point. The queen was a late mated (i.e bad weather when she emerged) in 2012 so I have a strong feeling that she is failing. That said I have treated that hive for varroa and can see no signs of disease. I think that they are pretty much disease free but I havent checked for nosema (i hope to check them this wknd with help from a fellow BKA member).

M

 

[Teemore]

By any chance is the queen stores blocked? If there are frames of stores bounding the brood nest, the queen will have nowhere to lay and so colony development will be constricted.
If this is the case, a few frames of drawn comb could profitably be swapped for stores frames in the brood box.

 

[Mellifera397]

I put frames of drawn comb on either side of the brood nest and HM has done nothing with them for two weeks.

M