Combining colonies for honey production

[ThomasGR]

Hello,
My colonies are not well developed  due to unusual cold weather and because of not having drawn comb, but all healthy. Their size varies from 7 to 20 frames. I have not even 1 extra drawn comd. Main flows starting right now , so in order to get some production i decided that i have to downsize my apiary from 20 to 10 or less productive hives , keeping the queens to the original position with 1-2 frames. Is there any period that united colonies need to "work" well and co-operate ? Do you join your weak hives before expected flows ?

[Steel Tiger]

 I think most people use the newspaper method to combine hives. It just takes a day or so.

Here's a video that may give you some other ideas, either for this year or to set up for next year.

The Sustainable Apiary by Mike Palmer

[RHBee]

Thomas,
I have combined my 20 down to 10 just for this purpose. As ST said I used the news paper combine method. My hives weren't very weak. I combined w/o worrying about finding the queens. I let the bees figure it out. Only one has ended up queenless. I'm adding a frame of eggs today to that colony. They may have a virgin. I found open QC's in there. We are 3 weeks into the flow and I just pulled 7 gal of honey from two of them the others are getting close.

[10framer]

ray is that 7 gallons each or combined?  is your flow winding down yet?

[RHBee]

ray is that 7 gallons each or combined?  is your flow winding down yet?

Rob, That was 7 gal between the two. The flow isn't slacking off yet as far as bee activity goes. From what I can gather our flow lasts until the end of june, historically. I don't know when the clover quits blooming they're sitting on maybe 10 acres of the stuff.

[10framer]

crimson is long gone here but my ball clover is still open.  privet is almost done but poplars have opened up.  i planted 50 pounds of buckwheat over the weekend.  i think persimmon will bloom around late june but i'm not sure.  after that hopefully there are some cotton fields near me this year and maybe the bees will work sumac if it's dry in late summer.  then i may try to harvest some goldenrod this fall but i liked letting them backfill on it last year and only having to feed 3 or 4 times all winter.  it also forced a brood break before going into winter.

[10framer]

i got a bit off topic.  ray, do you think combining made a difference?

[RHBee]

i got a bit off topic.  ray, do you think combining made a difference?

PM sent.

[Colobee]

It's kind of a pain, but you can "two queen" by sandwiching supers between hives with 2 queen excluders.