Uniting Agressive hives

[aberreef]

Two of my hives have become quite aggressive and non-productive. They expanded fairly quickly earlier in the year then slowed to an almost standstill. Plenty of bees, just not doing a lot.

I have a 2 year old queen in a nuc from Swarm control a few weeks back but only on 2 frames atm. The traits of this queen are almost perfect though.

My idea is to kill one of the bad queens and unite to the other and later on unite this lot to the queen in the nuc. Would this be a good idea?

Of my other 3 hives, 1 is very productive atm and filling their second super, 1 has just been Demaree'd (not sure if this is working correctly though) and the other has a virgin queen. Also one nuc with virgin queen.

Any other suggestions would be welcome too

Thanks

Huw

 

[Finman]

.
It is better to buy new laying queens.

But why they do not work? What have been your pastures since they stopped working. Have you much flowers there or have you too much bees on pastures?

 

[aberreef]

Thanks for the reply Finman

I have moved my hives to another location due to the guy I was renting from wanting me gone. They are now at a higher altitude with not quite so easy foraging. Hawthorn has just finished and Bramble won't be too long starting. Otherwise there are lots of gardens fairly local, within 1 mile, fields, wooded areas also close by.

The one colony was extremely small following the winter. I donated brood from another hive a few months back which helped but they never really took off as well as the other hives. The queen is laying but severely behind the others, brood on only 4-5 frames.

As for the other hive I'm not sure what the problem is with these. They are a little light so probably could do with a feed. I didn't have a good look through the hive yesterday because they were just too angry. As soon as I touched the crown board they came out like bullets.

There is a little nectar and plenty of pollen in both colonies.