Combining two double deep hives

[kemptville]

Is it possible to combine two double-deep hives together?

My hive # 1 has been lagging in population all summer so I looked into it today and found it is queenless, has about 7 queen cells, no eggs, very few capped brood, etc. I'm curious if combing it with the stronger hive using the newspaper method is possible. I know it is for singles but never heard of doubles being combined. Both hives have their original brood chambers in the bottom box while the second chambers on top are mostly capped stores. How would I go about combining the two?

Should I place the original brood chamber from the queenless hive on top of the original brood chamber in the stronger hive and place the second deep on top of that? Would that work?

[Hemlock]

Seven queen cells. Supersedure or swarm?

Sounds like they're taking care of the queenless problem.  In three weeks you could be buried in eggs.

[kemptville]

Supersedure

Is it possible to combine tow double deeps?

[Hemlock]

Yes
Main hive keeps both it's boxes.  Combination hive loses one of its.  choose the best frames from the second hive and place them in the box that goes into the combine.  Store the rest in a freezer.  Place combine box on top of main hive; with newspaper and walk away.  No entrance for top box.



If those are supersedure cells you'll have queens soon!

[duck]

find someone with a couple of mated queens, and end up with three deeps. then feed them.

[Finski]

.
You just pile those hives together. I do that job every summer for main yield.

When the queenless hive has capped queen cells it accepts very well all new queens.

I never use newspapers.

[kemptville]

Thanks for the input - thank you Hemlock for the visual - much appreciated!

[yockey5]

You have stores, you have queen cells, so why combine?

[2Sox]

I agree with Yocky5. I'd just wait and see.  It's still not too late in the season.

Regarding combining: I use a double screen board - the best invention ever for this.  It doesn't seem to matter which goes on the bottom or top - strong or weak colony.  I open up one or two side or back openings on the board and leave them alone for about 4 or 5 days. Then I remove the screen and combine. No fighting, no dead bees. Then I consolidate/rearrange the combs a few days later after they've got things sorted out.  I usually only do this when I discover a queenless colony with a dwindling population.  I'll combine this with  another slow moving queen-right colony and wait and see what results.  Sometimes what I get is a banging new colony - probably because of supercedure.