Made up a nuc.. bees are fighting.

[Culley]

It's spring and swarm time here.
Today I made up a nuc in a five frame box with

• queen from strong colony, with frame of brood/pollen and 2 frames honey
• two frames mostly capped brood from another colony

I gave the strong colony a frame with two capped swarm cells to replace their queen.
I put the nuc in a new location close to the others.

An hour or so later, dozens of dead and dying bees were at the entrance to the nuc.
No flying activity, so it's not robbing. Afternoon, so hopefully they fly in the morning.

I think I have combined two races of bees, one is quite orange and the other is quite dark. Could this explain the massacre?

If I accidentally put the second colony's queen in (which I doubt), would they just kill one of the queens, or would it be normal for a lot of bees to kill each other?

Regards,
Culley

[super dave]

hmmm maybe bees from one colony fighting to protect the queens from the bees of the other colony?

[Michael Bush]

Never put bees from just two colonies. Go for three and smoke them pretty well and they will do fine.  Go for two and you're asking for trouble.  They will take up sides... confusion is your friend.

[Galaxy]

I combine bees from two colonies all the time while making up nucs.  But, I do spray both sides of each frame with a 1:1 sugar solution which contains peppermint and lemongrass oil.  I have never had a problem with them fighting each other. I don't smoke them.

[AliciaH]

The last nuc that I had to combine bees with started bickering right away.  I didn't have a sprayer with me, but did have sugar syrup.  I just dribbled it over the tops of the bees and let it run down the sides of the frames.  They got so busy grooming each other that they settled down pretty quick!