I have decided that I am going to combine my two weakest hives in preparation for winter (I am looking at a strong safflower flow that looks to start in a week or so). Combining will produce a very strong, single deep hive with a ton of workers to take advantage of the flow and build up a second deep (hopefully). I will have to pinch the queen from the weaker of the two hives before combining, so...
My question is: Once the queen is pinched is it necessary to wait before doing a newspaper combine (similar to waiting a day or so when you re-queen), or can you simply immediately proceed with the combine?
Thanks for replies.
Mike
use the newspaper. it takes about 10-12 hours for the old queens pheromones to fade.
I would wait 3 or 4 hours to a day if I could. If that would be too inconvenient, I'd just do the newspaper combine at that moment while you are there. If you have other work to do while you're there, pinch the queen first, do your other projects, then newspaper combine as you are leaving.