I have three hives, two doing well, one not so good. The weak hive has a Russian queen, so I thought the small amount of bees this winter was not unusual. Going into winter it did not have alot of stores of honey, but I thought I did a pretty good job of keeping them fed. The other two hives are going gangbusters and this hive is not building up as I expected, very little brood and I have been feeding all that the will take. (sugar syrup) Should I just try to combine them with another hive or give them a couple of weeks to see what happens? Or should I combine them with a queen excluder between the two and try to run a 2 queen hive? I don't want to lose the colony all together. I should mention that spring is pretty much here in north Carolina, but the main honey flow is around April 15 to about June 1st
thanks, David
If you don't suspect any disease(foulbrood) then I would requeen and see what happens. That is provided there are enough bees to maintain the colony.
Hello,
You should requeen and add some brood from one of the other hives to help build the colony up.
Cossack.
Thanks for the info. I thought that maybe she was just late to build up. I have a queen coming but will not be shipped until April 6th or something like that. I guess I will just add some brood from another hive to keep it going.
David