Uniting

[bobandbec]

Hi
This year I've gone for the vertical version of the artificial swarm, hopefully to make it easier to unite back to the original BB after removing the old queen. I have a couple now where the new queen is laying.
So from bottom to top I now have the old BB with the old queen in, QE with 3 supers on top then a division board with the entrance at the front, then the new BB with the new laying queen.
To unite back what is the best procedure to use?

Thanks

Peter

 

[Yossarian]

I was hoping there would be more responses to this question as I had exactly the same situation a week ago and I'm not sure I did the right thing.

I put the top brood box (from above the division board) on the floor. I then put newspaper and what was the bottom brood box on top of this, with the supers staying on top of what was the bottom brood box - still with me? The reasoning being that I didn't want to unite with the top brood box being sandwiched between the bottom brood box and the supers.

Well they now seem to have settled down but when I looked after a few hours there were quite a few dead bees at the entrance - but the bees have cleared these away now.

Yossarian

 

[bobandbec]

Thanks for your reply.

Yes a very disappointing response generally.

I'm still not sure what to do but the decision will have to be made very soon, the colonies are getting too high to manage comfortably. I've got the bee inspector coming to see me shortly for a requested inspection of some nucs I've made up so I'll raise the question with him and post his response.

Peter

 

[bobandbec]

The inspector turned up as scheduled.

His suggestion was to unite the artificial swarms by removing as many supers as possible sitting on top of the original queen brood box then simply place the new queen BB on top with newspaper and QE in between. Once the 'merge' has taken place the colony can be re-arranged as required.

The reason for removing the supers is to prevent the chance of queen cells being produced in the bottom BB when the old queen is taken out.

Just need the weather to put it into action now.

Peter

 

[Poly Hive]

You can use the weather as we have it to your advantage. The bees will be only too keen to evacuate the supers so get a clearer board on.

PH