One of my hives is weaker than the other five hives. I'm thinking about either (1) adding 3-4 frames of capped brood and nurse bees from a strong hive or (2) combining it with another hive using a sheet of newspaper.
What would you do? Pros? Cons?
One or two frames till you can re queen it. Don't carry on with a mediocre colony. :)doak
What did it look like going into winter, was it as strong as the others then ? Are their indicators of some sort of problem going on that is causing the numbers to drop more than the others. If nothing looks like a problem, you may want to add the bees as you planed and consider re queening that one.
I inspected the hive about a month ago and it looked pretty good. Bees were in the top box so I rotated the boxes. I just don't see the activity of coming and going from this hive that I see from the other hives. Plan to open it up this weekend, weather permitting, and get an up-to-date look at it.
Give only frame of emerging bees. It means that there are a hole in the center of frame and bees are emerging in periferia. If you give a frame where all is capped, it may take whole week that bees emerge.
Dont give young bees. They are not needed.
Give first 2 frames and let them emerge first. If you give too many at one time, the small hive is not able to keep brood warm.
Good points, Finski! Thanks! :-D
Quote from: Finski on March 26, 2010, 03:39:17 PM
Give only frame of emerging bees. It means that there are a hole in the center of frame and bees are emerging in periferia. If you give a frame where all is capped, it may take whole week that bees emerge.
Dont give young bees. They are not needed.
Give first 2 frames and let them emerge first. If you give too many at one time, the small hive is not able to keep brood warm.
Why aren't young bees needed? It seems that for the queen to lay and the eggs and brood to be tended you would need young bees. And it seems that the nurse bees that are clinging to the brood frame are just what you need to keep the brood warm.
I'm not arguing, I just don't understand.
Putting strange bees directly in could cause fighting. The capped brood becomes nurse bees as soon as they emerge, with in hours. :)doak
if you do have a really weak hive and choose to put a frame of brood in with nurse bees, it will work fine. fighting comes from robbing, not nurse bees.
just don't move the queen by accident :-D
Quote from: kathyp on March 28, 2010, 01:51:18 PM
if you do have a really weak hive and choose to put a frame of brood in with nurse bees, it will work fine. fighting comes from robbing, not nurse bees.
just don't move the queen by accident :-D
Yeah, thanks. I was especially concerned because I just did that. Didn't move the queen though. For some reason I'm spotting them really easy lately.
Quote from: David LaFerney on March 28, 2010, 06:44:08 PM
For some reason I'm spotting them really easy lately.
Yeah. It's amazing how you "learn" to find queens easily after a few years experience.