I need a little advice....
I split a hive last weekend using a new queen. I messed up and accidentally introduced my new queen into a queen-right hive. Luckily I was able to rescue the new queen before they killed her. I checked the mother hive and sure enough it was queenless with numerous queen cells built and capped.
I made a new split from the queenless hive and and reintroduced the queen. They seemed to have accepted her, she was laying and they were attending her today when I checked.
I'm wondering if I can take this small split and recombine it with the "mother-hive" which is now queenless using a double screen board?
I really would like to have one stronger hive going into the honey flow rather than 2 small hives.
if I recombine do I need to remove the queen cells? How long do I leave the double screen board?
I hope this makes sense...
thanks
Jay
If other hive is queenless why do you need a double screen board. Newspaper method should work. As far as I know you surely want to remove the queen cells or one will emerge killing your queen or something to that effect.
I thought the newspaper method and the screen board method were essentially the same thing, just one using newspaper and the other a screen...am I missing something?
The screen is a separation that the bees can not over come, they don't have the little bolt cutters needed to get through the wire mesh.
The newspaper they chew through a little at the time and eventually they all mix together...to go one better, after they go through the paper, to remove the super or box that is now on top, just shake the bees off each frame or insert an escape board in between, a couple of days later they should all be in the bottom...
Combine those bees with your weakest hive to give them a boost, not necessarily the hive from which they came from.
So in the newspaper method the bees release themselves whereas if I used my screen board I would have to remove it after a few days...
Does it matter that my queen-right hive is only about about 3 frames of bees while the queenless one is 5 or 6 times bigger? Can I still do newspaper method or will it take longer for the larger number of bees to become acclimated to the new queen.
thanks...I think I'll be trying out the newspaper combine tomorrow unless I hear otherwise
It doesn't matter the size of the colonies.
remove what will be left of the paper in about a week..