Uniting colonies in different hive types

[Midgey]

I am new to bee keeping and I hope that you will be able to advise me on the best method of uniting two small colonies that are current in different types of hive - one is in a national and the other in a langstroth. I understand the basic concept of uniting colonies using newspaper to separate them but I am unsure how to achieve this with the two differing hive types. Any advice gratefully accepted.

 

[marcros]

I have never done this, but you could try a piece of ply the size of the langstroth box, with an almost national sized hole in the middle.

 

[Onge]

Yep sheet of ply with a hole cut in it. Dose not have to be a big hole 10" diameter or something. I happened to have a diamond shaped hole and it worked out fine.

 

[Hawklord]

Does the ply need to have some strips of wood on to create a bee space?

 

[Finman]

.
I use all the time different size boxes. Wooden are langstroth 9 frames and polys are 10 frames.

I have made from waterproof ply setup frame between different size of boxes so there is no gap and rainwater does not go into hive.

 

[BKF Admin]

Grizzly did this last year,he should be able to tell you what size hole he used.

He went National to Langstroth.

 

[Midgey]

Thanks for the feedback (and photos) hopefully I will be successful in my hole cutting endeavours!

 

[Poly Hive]

The hole size should reflect the smaller box. If lang to national then the hole is national and so on.

PH

 

[DulwichGnome]

Just to clarifiy, which box will the queen naturally end up in, the top or the bottom? Or is it a question of finding her after the colonies have been united and using a QX once she is in the right one?

Mike.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

The queen and brood will tend to work towards the top over the next few weeks where it is warmer, so the hive that is required for overwintering should be on the top. Once the brood has emerged from the bottom box it can be removed.

 

[Finman]

The queen and brood will tend to work towards the top over the next few weeks where it is warmer, so the hive that is required for overwintering should be on the top. Once the brood has emerged from the bottom box it can be removed.

Hmm. Bees store pollen into lower box and they need it during winter.
I move brood frames to lower box and bees fill the upper box syrup.

What was the basic idea to do what?

No problem if I overwinter bees on super combs.

Let the upper box be filled with honey. Exctract it and brood are in lower box.