Can we combine different types of honey bees?
I have a hive with smaller bees that are darker in color, weak colony, I want to shake or combine some
bees from another hive into this one to help them out.
But this booming hive has larger sized bees. Perhaps a different breed. The larger sized colony
seems to have a brighter rear section.
Ok to combine or they'll kill each other because they aren't the same type?
it's fine. if you are combining two hives do a newspaper combine. if you are just adding frames of workers and brood try to do it during the warmth of the day when the foragers are out. there will be some scuffling between them, but not much.
If you shake in some bees from more then one hive the confusiion usually works out so they don't fight. If you shake in some bees and smoke them more than usualy (don't smoke them out of the hive, just enough to get to the far corners of the hive) they usually won't fight. If you shake brood frames in front of the entrance the nurse bees tend to crawl into the new hive and the field bees (who would have flown home anyway) go home directly and this usually prevents any fighting. A frame of emerging brood with attached bees is a great boost to a struggling hive.