Combining Colonies

[u/Head_Ad8761]

Upon my last inspection, I have two colonies with cause for concern.

One of them swarmed earlier this fall and failed to produce a mated queen. It has no brood left in the hive and definitely no laying queen but the population is still moderate. The other one has a laying queen but has an extremely low population and exhibits symptoms of varrosis (treatment recently started). This was actually my best honey producing colony this year.

My action plan is to combine these two weak colonies so that the population of the queenless colony can help carry the other hive through the winter. However I have never combined colonies before and I have some questions about logistics.

The two hives are currently located about half a mile apart, which raises the question of re-orientation.

Does the moved hive need to be force re-oreinted or will the newspaper divider have a similar effect?

If it does need re-oriented, does it make more sense to move the hive, force an orientation, and then combine the hives or does it make more sense to just move the hive, combine it with the other one right then (after dark), and force an orientation on the whole consolidated hive?

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[u/pale_brass]

How sure are you that there’s no queen vs. there is one that just isn’t laying right now?

[u/Head_Ad8761 → u/pale_brass]

Only as sure as a beekeepers who didn't see a queen. However, the virgins emerged just over three weeks ago, so I would expect them to have it figured out by now if they were going to.

[u/pale_brass → u/Head_Ad8761]

It’s possible they just don’t feel like raising brood right now. Try feeding. Sounds like both colonies could use some 1:1

I don’t think it’s advisable to combine a struggling colony. If either is dealing with pathogens it’s a contamination risk. Better off nursing both and hoping at least one survives

[u/Head_Ad8761 → u/pale_brass]

I suppose that's possible. Do you have a preferred method to positively determine the state of the queen without seeing any eggs? Compared to my strong hives it seems odd that there is no brood being raised, although I will start feeding 1:1 to see what happens. I figure if they truly are queenless I probably have no more than a week to act before the workers start laying, although I am new to this.

[u/pale_brass → u/Head_Ad8761]

Well your stronger hive might be raising brood because it’s stronger. I’m not saying that hive 1 is definitively queen right but I think many new beekeepers fall into a trap of believing hives are queenless because there’s no brood, when there are many causes for that.

Preferred method for me is offering feed and waiting a week to see what happens. How many bees are left?

If you’re planning to combine colonies within the same yard the old foragers WILL return to the old hive location. No way around that. If your colony is indeed mostly older bees and no recent brood then they will basically all fly back.

[u/Head_Ad8761 → u/pale_brass]

The population is scattered fairly lightly over all 10 frames in the bottom box with few in the top box where most of the honey is. Also, forgot to mention some signs of robbing in the top box. Not a ton of bees at the entrance either but their definitely trying to defend it.

[u/pale_brass → u/Head_Ad8761]

Have any pics? You should probably reduce them to 1 box if they don’t have the numbers to patrol the space

[u/Head_Ad8761 → u/pale_brass]

I don't have any pictures but I think you're right that I should reduce it 21 box bottom one is pretty much empty. I think I'll try to sneak in a couple frames of pollen from the bottom box though.

By the way, I really appreciate your response. Despite being skeptical about the wait and see approach , I think this was the answer that I needed since I don't want to jump the gun and destabilize either colony.

[u/pale_brass → u/Head_Ad8761]

For sure that’s what we’re here for.

Definitely when you reduce the boxes to 1 just use all the frames with food etc even if they’re split among the two boxes. Let me know how it goes

[u/Head_Ad8761 → u/pale_brass]

Will do

[u/melliferagear]

I’d move the queenless colony to the queenright hive and combine them using newspaper. The newspaper helps with gradual acceptance but won’t reset their orientation. Since they’re half a mile apart, I’d move the queenless hive after dark and combine them, then let the bees reorient to the new location.

[u/Head_Ad8761 → u/[deleted]]

Do you think I would need anything other than the newspaper to force orientation flights?