Uniting hives without finding the Queen

trevort · Jun 1, 2012

Hi all,
Has anyone ever put 2 colonies together without finding and removing one of the Queens first?
Iv'e read the books and seen posts here regarding this. I can understand the need to remove 1 Q before uniting but having only seen Queens rarely I have no confidence that I could find her at will.
Reason for asking; have 4 hives at the moment don't want to keep increasing as each season comes and goes. Currently have a prime swarm and a cast from 1 hive which are the subject of the unite!
Still to check re laying progress on both, only been 2 weeks since the original hive swarmed
Any thoughts,ideas, comments from experience gratefully received TA.

rae · Jun 1, 2012

You can do it, but one queen will die, as likely to be the "wrong" queen as the "right" one. Worse still, one queen may die and the other may be damaged.

If both are equivalent queens, then simply unite when you happen to see one of them.

RoofTops · Jun 1, 2012

The problem is if one of the queens is a little runt it may be able to move faster than the large egg-laying machine you probably want to keep.

This sounds like an ideal opportunity to learn to look for queens!

I would assess each colony first. For example, if you have one with chalk brood and one without then it is probably a no-brainer - cull the queen from the chalk brood hive as susceptability to the disease is genetic. You can also look at laying pattern and of course the temper of the colonies.

You will not improve your stock if you cannot exercise some degree of control - and that means learning to find queens. You may be able to get a more experienced beekeeper to help you find the queens if you ask your local association.

AndreaW · Jun 1, 2012

What about putting a queen excluder on top of a brood box, add an empty super and shake the bees onto the queen excluder. Smoke them down and you should be able to find the queen that can't get through the qe.