Why does my uniting never work?

[susbees]

Never wise to leave queens to fight it out as the winner may end up with bits missing (ends of a leg or antennae) bitten off by the eventual loser. The excluder not only holds the newspaper down but also ensures you know where the queen is (useful info if you want to reduce the hive down to one brood chamber).

Yup...useful points.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Poly Hive]

From D. Cushman.

"Newspaper uniting is the most common method of combining two boxes of unrelated bees, that occurs in beekeeping text books.

One or two sheets of newspaper are placed between the boxes of bees to act as a barrier which will slow down the integration of the two groups of bees. The newspaper is pricked a few times in the area that will be over the centre of the box. This will give the bees a purchase to start the chewing, which will gradually open a passage which bees can pass through.

This chewing takes time and during it, bees from either side of the membrane have an opportunity to lick each other allowing scents to mingle. Very little fighting normally occurs, although on odd occasions fighting results in the deaths of many bees. Luckily such occasions are so rare that I have only seen it once in a thirty year period and I am one that has taken a few chances.

Leave the united bees alone for a week, they will have removed most of the newspaper and it will be seen as scattered fragments in front of the hive entrance.

A queenless or weak colony may be united with another. Put the weaker colony on top of the stronger one. Many texts will tell you to kill the least desirable queen in one of the two groups to be united, but I find it is often prudent to leave both queens, so that the bees can make the choice, in most cases the younger and fitter queen remains, but there may be subtle things in a queen's make up that the bees are better able to make choices about rather than the beekeeper.
Two brood boxes united by newspaper

There is a variation to this method... If the lower colony already has a honey super on, this can be left in place and the newspaper positioned on top of the super, rather than the brood box.

Yet another variation is to use one or two queen excluders, so that the bees combine, but the queens cannot meet. If the upper box does not contain frames, a swarm may be dumped into it. In either case the queen from the upper box will be found on the upper surface of the topmost queen excluder after most of the bees have gone through the newspaper. "

I have read and re-read this this morning after reading it last night and no where that I can see is there a mention of preparing the hives and or leaving several hours.

PH

 

[Ivor Kemp]

I quote once again:

The hives to be united should be prepared during the day, when most of the flying bees are away from the hive, and the actual uniting done in the evening when all is quiet.

and then there is the quote regarding letting the queens fight it out which many here disagree with.

Whatever, there may have been other circumstances as others have pointed out, but as always in bee keeping we continually learn not to adopt a puppet master such as DC. As we all know for every question there are many different opinions from experienced bee keepers.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Pepared during the day,like removing any unwanted queen,re-arranging supers if needed,not jobs you want to be doing when its very nearly dark a few minutes before uniting, with many bees airborn.

 

[alanf]

I quote once again

There could be some ambiguity here, "preparation" can be moving the hives and frames into position. Your quote doesn't explicitly say the paper should be on hours in advance. Are those words from Dave Cushman's site? Not on the pages I have seen.

 

[Ivor Kemp]

Yes fair point.

It doesn't explicitly say put the paper on hours in advance.

Given though that this is the main bit of 'preparing' the receiving hive you can see why at least two of us read it like this.

Has anyone tried DC's other suggestion when uniting a super with another colony using a Crown Board with just a 8mm hole in it? The theory being that only one bee at a time and get through and with the build up of bees either side the scents are mixed.

 

[Juststarting]

Has anyone tried DC's other suggestion when uniting a super with another colony using a Crown Board with just a 8mm hole in it? The theory being that only one bee at a time and get through and with the build up of bees either side the scents are mixed.

I would worry that this method could result in the experience I had uniting where the bees didnt get through the paper quick enough and lots of bees in the top box suffocated as the temperature rose high enough to melt wax in super frames (it was not a particularly warm day so the heat was generated by the bees "panicking" when unable to get out).

 

[Poly Hive]

Can you post the page you are quoting from as I cannot see it on Dave's site.

To call him a puppet master is to put it mildly unkind. His site is considered by many a gem of info.

So post the precise link please so we can further assist you.

PH

 

[Ivor Kemp]

That's what I thought juststarting.

The bees either get through or they don't. DC referes to a build of bees either side which prevents them mixing but for how long? Not enough information here for me to be confident of its success.

Thanks Poly Hive for the offer of further assistance but everyone has been very helpful on here.

 

[DanBee]

I googled Ivor's quote and it came up on the Somerset BKA site.

In my reading of it, whilst there are one or two bits I'd question, I don't see it telling me to put the newspaper on during the day then unite in the evening. The 'prepare during the day' bit is all about getting into what is presumably a large, ill-tempered, colony whilst the foragers are out in order to de-queen.

 

[Poly Hive]

I would still like the precise link Ivor as if it is causing problems then it needs addressing?

PH

 

[DanBee]

usually the telegraph.....

I find that for £2 any Saturday Telegraph lasts an age for uniting. Nice big sheets that generously cover, and plenty of pages.

Out of preference I would give them the Gardening or Finance/Business sections; I think this promotes the right ethos. Never the Travel section - don't want to get them thinking of travel. Back in the days of universal broadsheets, we advised against using the Guardian for fear that it would result in low productivity, hostility towards the beekeeper, and rapid failed supercedure leading to laying workers...

 

[Ivor Kemp]

If that is the answer DanBee then it really should say so don't you think? It doesn't mention de-queening at all.

 

[alanf]

I find that for £2 any Saturday Telegraph lasts an age for uniting. Nice big sheets that generously cover, and plenty of pages.

Out of preference I would give them the Gardening or Finance/Business sections; I think this promotes the right ethos. Never the Travel section - don't want to get them thinking of travel. Back in the days of universal broadsheets, we advised against using the Guardian for fear that it would result in low productivity, hostility towards the beekeeper, and rapid failed supercedure leading to laying workers...

Main section of the Guardian is just wide enough for a national box without leaving too much flapping in the rain. Sports pages are quite good, maybe the cricket scores put them in the right mood for sunny summer days. Unfortunately the free sheets are a little narrow, although I've seen it done with a bit of tape.

 

[Ivor Kemp]

Poly Hive:

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/newhome.html

 

[DanBee]

As with all things beekeeping, to cover every combination and permutation - queenless/queenright/laying workers, with/without supers, hives more than 3 feet apart, temperament, relative colony sizes, strain diversity - would make the article three times the size and a quarter as digestible. And of course newspaper is just one of the methods used, and indeed there are different successful newspaper methods - such as wrapping frames - that work and may be appropriate in some circumstances.

What's fundamental is the principle: newspaper delays meeting and allows for progressive familiarisation, generally resulting in a successful unite. That it happens to be almost trivial to perform and uses freely available and residue-free materials is probably the root of its popularity.

I used the same principle this spring when I realised I really should have bought another Saturday Telegraph: middle of nowhere, two apparently healthy but small colonies suffering against the elements, and no newspaper. I simply put a crownboard over one, cut a thin sliver of fondant and placed it over the feedhole, and dropped the second one on top. Same principle, successful unite, happy colony still going strong.

 

[Ivor Kemp]

Thanks DanBee

 

[DanBee]

I only wish I hadn't read this which is on a well-known advice site:

The hives to be united should be prepared during the day, when most of the flying bees are away from the hive, and the actual uniting done in the evening when all is quiet.

I'm puzzled as to why we're now discussing the accuracy of Dave Cushman's site/advice when actually his advice appears to be sound. I googled for this quote and found it at the link posted above, i.e.:

The simplest and most successful method involves the use of a sheet of newspaper.

The principal is to place one colony on top of another separated only by newspaper. The bees will chew through the paper and unite, but this will probably take at least twenty-four hours, by which time the colony odours will be neutralised, and the bees will have had time to calm down and are no longer in a defensive attitude.

The hives to be united should be prepared during the day, when most of the flying bees are away from the hive, and the actual uniting done in the evening when all is quiet. The best time of year to unite is in early autumn, after the honey crop has been removed. It can be achieved with supers in place, but they are an added complication. If both colonies are queen right, the decision must be taken which queen to retain. There is sometimes a “cop out” by beekeepers at this stage, not wanting to kill off perhaps a perfectly good queen, so the two colonies are united leaving the queens to “fight it out”. This is not a good practice, as although the strongest queen is usually the victor, quite often she receives injury during the confrontation. Much better to find and destroy the unwanted queen before uniting. The colony without a queen should always be united on top of the queen right colony, not the other way around. It is therefore necessary to check and if necessary clean the bottoms of the frames in the queenless colony. As modern hive floors are deeper than a bee space, the bees are prompted to build brace comb under the bottom bars. If these are then placed on top of a sheet of newspaper, the paper will be broken, rendering the operation futile, or the frames will be pushed up, thereby raising the crown board.

Once the colony, which is to be united, has been prepared, it can be closed down until the evening, and attention turned to the receiving colony. All that is necessary here is to check that they are in fact queen right, and scrape off the top bars of the frames to provide a smooth surface for the newspaper to rest on. A single sheet of newspaper is then applied and held in place by a couple of drawing pins, or by covering with a queen excluder. The crown board and roof can then be replaced, and the hive left until the evening.

In the evening, when the bees have finished flying for the day, the roof and crown board are quietly removed. The bees are not disturbed as they are covered by the newspaper. The second hive is then quietly released from its floor, and gently placed over the newspaper. The united hive should be left completely alone for at least two days, or until crumbs of chewed up newspaper can be seen being ejected at the entrance. The colony can then be inspected, and combs moved around to place all the brood in one area, or the brood in the upper chamber simply left to emerge, after which this brood chamber can be removed.

I think it's just an honest case of mis-reading and I don't think Ivor should be criticised for having the sense to ask advice when it clearly hadn't worked for him.

 

[Ivor Kemp]

Thanks for this DanBee.

And these sentences in what you quote are the most misleading I think:

In the evening, when the bees have finished flying for the day, the roof and crown board are quietly removed. The bees are not disturbed as they are covered by the newspaper.

This surely implies that the newspaper had been put in place earlier in the day and was therefore part of the 'preparation'.

 

[DanBee]

Thanks for this DanBee.

And these sentences in what you quote are the most misleading I think:

In the evening, when the bees have finished flying for the day, the roof and crown board are quietly removed. The bees are not disturbed as they are covered by the newspaper.

This surely implies that the newspaper had been put in place earlier in the day and was therefore part of the 'preparation'.

Actually, yes, reading it again I can see where you'd get that from:

Once the colony, which is to be united, has been prepared, it can be closed down until the evening, and attention turned to the receiving colony. All that is necessary here is to check that they are in fact queen right, and scrape off the top bars of the frames to provide a smooth surface for the newspaper to rest on. A single sheet of newspaper is then applied and held in place by a couple of drawing pins, or by covering with a queen excluder. The crown board and roof can then be replaced, and the hive left until the evening.

In the evening, when the bees have finished flying for the day, the roof and crown board are quietly removed. The bees are not disturbed as they are covered by the newspaper.

Yes, that is definitely misleading and prone to exactly the problem you have encountered. I shall have words with them...