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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #4507  by Japey Edge
 14 Aug 2019, 15:39
Chrisbarlow wrote:
14 Aug 2019, 14:37
You've got a problem queen in a hive. She's nasty for instance.

You have another colony near by and they are nice.

How to merge together...

Go into nasty colony, find queen and kill her. Check colony to make sure no 2nd queen is running round in there as well. You just never know.

The nice queen colony, remove roof and crown board and put a single sheet of newspaper on top of it, straight onto the frames, something that covers the whole top of the box. A nice broad sheet. If you must use a trashy tabloid you might need two sheets but that's ok. Then make some slashes in the paper, small in size and small in number.

Some folk also squirt in air freshener under the paper, your call.

Now take your queenless nasty queen colony , you just need the boxes and frames and bees, leave the floor , crown board and roof behind and put it on top of the boxes with the nice queen inside.

Put crown board and roof back on again.

Leave it alone for a week

A miracle hopefully has happened and the originally two colonies have become one headed by the nice queen


This is all about meeting two colonies together without them fighting each other and you choose which queen survives

Hope this help

Kind regards Chris
Thanks Chris,

I'll bear that in mind as it's a good run through of a paper unite. I hadn't considered uniting though, as I want to go into winter with three colonies (2 x single brood nationals and 1 x nuc). I was thinking along the lines of how to replace this queen with a nice one. I should start a new thread on this really so as not to chew this one up.
 #4509  by Patrick
 14 Aug 2019, 18:55
Wildfire wrote:
14 Aug 2019, 15:09
Hi
When talking about %what do you mean by one lot of honey was 16%and the other17%sorry if this is an obvious question .
Not sure of context but assume reference was to water content of honey as measured by a refractometer. 20% is legal limit for sale as normal honey as is high chance will eventually start to ferment, seep from the jar and taste affected. In practice, approaching that figure can still ferment as it granulates. In buckets this is shown as a “heaving” with an accompanying bready smell. Depressing.

Heather honey may carry slightly higher moisture content.
 #4516  by Japey Edge
 14 Aug 2019, 22:12
Patrick wrote:
14 Aug 2019, 22:07
Aha, cheers Jazz!

May your honey always be below 15%..!
Haha thanks! I'm just hoping I get some honey at all :lol:

As for what I did today - researched a little on what I need to start prepping in the coming months.
I also looked online for maybe another poly national and maybe another poly nuc... :shock:
 #4549  by Chrisbarlow
 17 Aug 2019, 15:01
Japey Edge wrote:
17 Aug 2019, 13:38
Any thoughts on this video I took?
https://1drv.ms/v/s!Av81dIXQWFUjpFdBtd_2IvqrHnB1

Robbing?
I believe not. A bee fanning at the front, is it queen right? bees coming and going. There doesn't appear to be a large frenzy or anything similar. Smallish entrance.

Looks ok to me.
 #4550  by Chrisbarlow
 17 Aug 2019, 15:02
Releasing queens into nucs for overwintering
 #4551  by Japey Edge
 17 Aug 2019, 15:12
Chrisbarlow wrote:
17 Aug 2019, 15:01
Japey Edge wrote:
17 Aug 2019, 13:38
Any thoughts on this video I took?
https://1drv.ms/v/s!Av81dIXQWFUjpFdBtd_2IvqrHnB1

Robbing?
I believe not. A bee fanning at the front, is it queen right? bees coming and going. There doesn't appear to be a large frenzy or anything similar. Smallish entrance.

Looks ok to me.
Yeah there's a queen in there Chris. She's the one I want to replace.
Thanks that's put my mind to rest :)
 #4554  by AdamD
 17 Aug 2019, 17:55
I have finally taken the last supers off at my out apiary today. I brought a few bees home and they flew to the window of my bee shed. They are now outside the window, not quite sure where they need to go.
One colony with a 2019 queen has no brood at all - so I suspect supercedure and there's a queen in there somewhere.
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