Paper combining Hives

[SlickMick]

This morning I have had to do a newspaper combine of my two swarms that I have housed in nucs. I discovered that the queen in one has stopped laying and the other was not progressing as I would expect. A nuc, now in a deep that I bought at the same time as I caught the swarms is going like a house on fire.. whole frames of brood and eggs. Hence I have a new queen arriving on Wednesday next week which I will introduce to the combined hive. Hopefully this will get them going a heap better than they have been recently.

The question is how long does it usually take for the bees to chew through the paper and combine successfully?

There is quite a lot of SHB about at the moment and I am concerned that the weakened swarms may fall to them. I found 2 or 3 SHB larva in the oil trap at the bottom of the brood box but did not locate any in the brood.

[malabarchillin]

A day or 2.

[TwT]

I always get a razor and cut a couple slits in it and then put between the hive I am combining. like said above a day or so then they work on removing the paper, all you should see is the paper on outside the hive in a couple days, sometimes they don't remove it all and you can then but some remove all of it.

[iddee]

I have never had it take more than overnight. I just use the hive tool and punch two holes in it. I put a hole between the hive body and the first frame, on each side. That way, they don't go down right into the brood chamber.

[Brian D. Bray]

I have never had it take more than overnight. I just use the hive tool and punch two holes in it. I put a hole between the hive body and the first frame, on each side. That way, they don't go down right into the brood chamber.

That's the smart way to do it.