I would like to do a combine on two hives and a nuc. How is it best to accomplish this? Do a newspaper combine on the three all at once after removing the old queens from the two hives (the queen I want to keep is in the nuc). Old hive-paper-old hive-paper-nuc?
Or combine all the three hives with no paper remove the old queens and cage the one I wish to keep?
You can do a newspaper combine or you can just smoke them like crazy and put them all together...
MB
Smoke like crazy put them all together with uncaged queen I wish to keep??? Or cage queen?
Go through and pull the old queens with the frame they are on and lean them up against the fence or somewhere so that the queens are shaded, and put the frames apart from each other. Close up those two hives.
Go into the nuc and find the queen and grab her frame and one more frame of open brood with adhering bees and lean them to the side. also, with the queen between the two frames of brood. Go back now to the first two old queens, kill one, and put the other with both those old queen frames into the nuc, into the center of it like they belonged there with the queen in the center. Save her for a week there just to observe and make sure everything works out.
It will have been long enough now, the other two hives both know they are queenless, they will be buzzing now and more agitated. Join them with lots of smoke. Make the spot of the two total missing frames be in the top box in the center, and put the nuc's queen with frames you wanted to keep in the center now, with the queen between them, just like they belonged there in that hive. Close it up. Come back in a couple days or a week. If it all looks well, do the same type of thing to join the nuc into the main hive.
This kind of joining has always worked for me, so far at least. I do use lots of smoke and do it near evening dusk, and during a nectar flow or at least not during a dearth of nectar.
If you have a preference on queens, I would remove all the ones you don't want first. Otherwise the bees will decide for you. Odds are they will prefer a free queen to one in a cage, but you don't know what they will do.