Queenless Colony

[spud]

Hi, basically I have a hive which was an artificial swarm back in May. They never produced a mated queen and since then I have tried several (unsuccesfully) times to sort them out. I wont bore you with all the details but now I have given them up as hopeless case even though there are a useful amount of bees left. My question is if I just move the hive away will the returning bees filter back into my other hives without starting a riot? (Previous uniting had failed).I dont want to jepordise my other hives but if I thought they would just settle into the other hives it would be worth doing.

Any thoughts?

[indypartridge]

You could try that - worker bees who are carrying pollen/nectar are usually accepted into other hives (no riots). "Drifting" is common when there are several hives close together.

I had a "hopeless hive" earlier this summer (laying worker) and what I did was move it away during the day, and in it's spot I put a weak hive that I had. That way all the productive field bees from the "hopeless hive" helped build up my weak hive.