Uniting Apidea and Q- colony

[MJBee]

I have a mated laying queen in an Apidea and a queenless colony in a commercial brood. My options are:-

Catch and cage the queen, thorough check for queen cells then introduce. OR

Place apidea over the crown board feeder hole with a sheet of newspaper and allow them to unite.

Which option would members go for? Mike

 

[mbc]

I'd cage the queen personally, but then I've never tryed uniting an apidea- it would probably work better if you put some small holes (too small for bees to get through)in the newspaper so the queenless bees underneath could start getting some pheromones by feeding through the holes

 

[PaleoPerson]

I had to do this very thing a few weeks ago and it all worked out very well.

1. Apidea over crown board.
2. Newspaper between Apidea and crownboard with a few small pin size holes in paper.
3. Opened floor enough to expose the paper over the hole (double check positioning).
4. Placed Apiguard eke and super on crownboard then roof (an Apidea will not fit snugly in a national super)

They all united fine and the colony is going great guns.