Does anyone have any experience or advice with regard to combining a swarm with an existing top bar hive? I have a VERY small colony in a TBH and I thought that if I could catch a swarm, I could give them a boost. Thanks.
Mike
Unless the swarm is queenless, I dont think you can do this as the bee's would attack each other? In the very least one queen would probably kill the other.
If I catch a swarm, I was planning on pinching the queen that comes with it. My TBH has a small number of bees right now. I was hoping to augment them with swarm - but am not sure how to combine. I was thinking about building a screened follower board - housing the swarm 'behind' the existing hive and feeding it syrup. The hive can forage (things are starting to flow here).