combining hives to strengthen for flow......good idea???

[joker1656]

We still have the soybean flow to look forward to, or so I am told.  First season, so not sure which end is up most of the time. 

Is it a good idea to combine a couple of strong hives in an attempt to make a super powerful hive to store honey???  I have read that one colony of 60k bees will produce more than two with 30k each.

If it is a good idea, how soon before the flow starts is a good time to do it?

Joker

[RayMarler]

combining might be a good idea, but I think I might perfer the shook swarm method.

Take your strongest hive and shake all the bees off of the brood frames and give the bare brood frames to a weaker hive. In the now broodless strong hive, set the frame with the queen on it and a empty drawn frame into the middle of a box of nectar frames and put on the bottom, put the rest of the hives frames above that and supers above that. This gives you a full workforce in the nectar flow with no larva to feed so all the nectar coming in gets stored. It puts the queen in the bottom with one frame room to lay in so she don't go off laying, but she's surrounded by honey and nectar which will cause the bees to move it all up fast to give room for the queen to lay. Do this the week before a strong nectar flow and you'll get good results of honey storage. This also creates a period of near broodlessness to help with mite control.