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Author Topic: combinine hive?  (Read 3505 times)

Offline zzzzzzzzpr

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combinine hive?
« on: May 19, 2013, 02:17:54 am »
how do u go about combining hives if it is posible?

Moots

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Re: combinine hive?
« Reply #1 on: May 19, 2013, 07:27:06 am »
z,
I think one of the most common ways of doing this is with a Newspaper combine...did my first just the otherr day, and it apperars to have went well.

Take a single sheet of newspaper, using your hive tool or a razor knife, cut two to three decent size slits in it.  The slits will give the bees a starting point.  Take the cover off of hive A and lay the sheet of newspaper on the top, covering the entire box.  Take hive B and set it on top of the newspaper.  The bees from both hives will chew through the newspaper and remove it from the hive in the next day or two.  This will give them times for their pheromones to merge and for them to become familar with each other.  Be sure to provide a top entrance or crack your top cover to allow the bees in the top box a way in and out until they are done with the paper.  If not, and it gets too warm, the heat may kill them.

As with all things Beek, there are differing opinions on how much newspaper, how many if any slits, and whether or not you leave the paper dry or spritz it with sugar water.  

However, the above method seemed to work fine for me.  I was amazed at how quickly the little piles of shreeded newspaper started appearing in fromt of the hive.  

Good luck! :)

Offline zzzzzzzzpr

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Re: combinine hive?
« Reply #2 on: May 19, 2013, 10:38:46 am »
what of the queens?

Moots

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Re: combinine hive?
« Reply #3 on: May 19, 2013, 10:43:32 am »
what of the queens?

My understanding is that they'll "work it out"!  

Which most likely means one will kill the other, although, I have heard people say that they may coexist...at least for a while.

Offline L Daxon

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Re: combinine hive?
« Reply #4 on: May 19, 2013, 11:04:49 am »
If you have a reason to believe one of the queens is better than the other, try and find the less desirable queen and pinch (kill) her.  Then do the newspaper combine as described above.

If you can't find either queen, then you can let them "fight it out" but you do run a slight risk of them killing each other off.  If there are eggs present in either of the boxes you are combining, they can build a new queen, but that will leave your hive without new brood for 3 or 4 weeks. But this is not necessarily a bad thing.  Broodless periods are one way of controlling varroa.

This may not be the best time of year to be broodless as the honey flow is on, but there is a school of thought that says it is good to go broodless just as the flow starts cause then the younger bees have no brood to nurse/feed and they can go out and forage.

Linda D.
linda d

Offline gov1623

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Re: combinine hive?
« Reply #5 on: May 19, 2013, 11:06:21 am »
It depends on why your combining.  The main reason I combine hives is that one is just too far behind and I don't have extra queens at the time. I always kill the queen that I don't want. If you keep both queens, the inferior queen might kill the queen that is doing well resulting in loosing both hives. So the way I do it is kill the queen that I don't want, put a sheet of newspaper on top of the good hive(I don't cut slits), and place the queen less hive on top. They usually remove 100% of the newspaper in two days. I've done it this way many times and never remember it failing.
Who Dat!!!

Offline JWChesnut

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Re: combinine hive?
« Reply #6 on: May 19, 2013, 11:53:40 am »
Exercise caution, assess your reason for the combine.

A weak hive is weak for a reason. And more often than not for me in these days,  that is disease, not some queen characteristic.  Typically that means the deformed wing virus is decimating the hive.   Doesn't make sense to deliberately infect a thrifty hive just to save some worker bees. 

We are coming into robbing season, and a weak hive with a queen might be being robbed to death, move it back to a nuc and sometimes the hive rebounds quickly.

It is legitimate to combine hives when the queen has been lost or accidentally rolled and you don't think an emergency cell will be ready in time, or the emergency queen failed to return from its mating flight.  (By which time the hive is usually depopulating and passive).  That is 45+ days into the episode.

I've run combines (post newspaper) with a queen excluder between boxes, and upper and lower entrances, until I felt I knew what the situation with the colonies actually was.  Sort of hedging bets.  The nurse bees will stay on brood until it hatches.  If the weak colony is truely broodless, the bees will move down pretty quickly.  I always put the weakest colony on top.

Offline zzzzzzzzpr

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Re: combinine hive?
« Reply #7 on: May 19, 2013, 10:37:01 pm »
my reasonbehind it would be that fact they swarm if they swarm. i still have lots of room in my hive and didnt think they would explode as fast as they did.

if i could catch them may i could combine them with the rest of the room of my hive.

Offline sterling

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Re: combinine hive?
« Reply #8 on: May 20, 2013, 12:47:26 pm »
It depends on why your combining.  The main reason I combine hives is that one is just too far behind and I don't have extra queens at the time. I always kill the queen that I don't want. If you keep both queens, the inferior queen might kill the queen that is doing well resulting in loosing both hives. So the way I do it is kill the queen that I don't want, put a sheet of newspaper on top of the good hive(I don't cut slits), and place the queen less hive on top. They usually remove 100% of the newspaper in two days. I've done it this way many times and never remember it failing.

If the weather is hot what do you do about ventilation for the top hive?

Moots

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Re: combinine hive?
« Reply #9 on: May 20, 2013, 12:51:36 pm »

If the weather is hot what do you do about ventilation?

Sterling,
I think all you have to do is give them a top entrance, or crack the lid.   

Offline gov1623

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Re: combinine hive?
« Reply #10 on: May 20, 2013, 11:17:28 pm »
If the weather is hot what do you do about ventilation for the top hive?
[/quote]

If you do it later in the afternoon by the next morning they are usually all ready eating holes in the newspaper. It doesn't take them long.
Who Dat!!!

Moots

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Re: combinine hive?
« Reply #11 on: May 20, 2013, 11:47:47 pm »

If you do it later in the afternoon by the next morning they are usually all ready eating holes in the newspaper. It doesn't take them long.

This is true, I probably did mine around 7;00 in the evening or so, checked back a couple hours later after dark and there was already a decent little pile of shredded newspaper outside the entrance.  Checked them again about 07:00 the next morning and there was a BUNCH of newspaper on the ground below the hive.  I was actually shocked at how quickly they were getting it done.