juliabusybee
New Bee
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2011
- Messages
- 35
- Reaction score
- 4
- Location
- Strathpeffer near Inverness
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 1
Not sure if any one can give me a bit of advice. I united 2 colonies on Sunday 24th August because 1 colony was, I am certain, queenless (A) and the other had a queen who was laying but not prolifically(B) and was only 4 frames. Colony (B) is a hived cast from a swarm in June.
I placed the queenless larger colony (A) on top of (B) using the newspaper uniting method with no queen excluder between them. Everything seemd to go ok and they settle down quite quickly.
Today I looked to see what was happening and the majority of the bees are in the brood box (A) packing it with honey. The bottom box (B) has the same amount of brood but with the addition of about 6 or more queen cells.
What do you suggest...I obviously don't want them to swarm but perhaps its unavoidable unless i perhaps do an artificial swarm....any help would be most welcome. Maybe they think that the queen who was in Colony (B) is not up to the job? A bit confused so any help would be much appreciated. thanks
I placed the queenless larger colony (A) on top of (B) using the newspaper uniting method with no queen excluder between them. Everything seemd to go ok and they settle down quite quickly.
Today I looked to see what was happening and the majority of the bees are in the brood box (A) packing it with honey. The bottom box (B) has the same amount of brood but with the addition of about 6 or more queen cells.
What do you suggest...I obviously don't want them to swarm but perhaps its unavoidable unless i perhaps do an artificial swarm....any help would be most welcome. Maybe they think that the queen who was in Colony (B) is not up to the job? A bit confused so any help would be much appreciated. thanks