Yet another uniting question

[SteveJ]

Here's the situation. I've got four hives two on national and two on 14x12. The queens I want to keep are in the 14x12s. So using the news paper method procedure would be.

1. Kill the queens in the nationals or move to nuc and try and overwinter them for sale in the spring.
2. Place paper above 14x12. Not fogetting to place small holes in paper and damp it down as well.
3. Put national ontop of 14x12.
4. Wait a few days and check they've eaten their way through.

Now heres the where the questions start.

I want to overwinter on a single 14x12, so I don't want HM to move on up into the national. So I assume at some point I need the swap the two brood boxes so the 14x12 is on top. Then I need to wait for 3 weeks for the brood in the national to hatch. In the mean time I don't want HM moving down so is it worth putting a QE between the two brood boxes?
Next question is how late can I do this? I want to get this done in the next week as I want it done by the start of september so I can start feeding / varroa treatments, but I have a balsam flow on at the moment so really I could do with waiting until the flow is finished or could I unite with the supers on?

SteveJ

 

[Poly Hive]

Do what you want with the nat queens and unite with the Nat on the bottom, then the Q+ unit on top c/w supers. Wait 25 days and then clear the bees from the Nat and store the combs carefully.

BTW no need to wet the paper, you do NOT want them getting together too fast. Just a couple of small pricks through with the corner of your hive tool is sufficient and a double layer of paper please.
PH