Hive Swapping

[Pillpeddler]

Not to be confused with wife swapping  ;) ...    There is an elderly gentleman locally who gave me some advice on strong and weak hives.   He says that if you have a weak hive to exchange its location with that of a strong hive ( ie- put the weak hive on the strong hives stand and put the strong hive on the weak hives stand ).  Do this early or in the middle of the day so that the forager bees of the strong hive will come back to the weak hive and keep doing it til they die.  I asked him why the weak hive would allow foreign bees into their hive... he laughed and said "son, they'll be full of nectar coming back, aint no way that weak hive would keep'em out!"  He also says this is a great way to keep a strong hive from swarming and that he and his father ( thats about 100 years of beek together ) had done this many times without problems.   I've been reading lots of books and cruising websites like this and this is the first time I've heard of this.  Any of you superbeeks heard of this ?   Done this ?   Is this some arcane bit of hillbilly lore ? 

Thanks,  Pill

[John Schwartz]

This is pretty common practice for some. Some call it "equalizing".

[BjornBee]

I have done it many times.  ;)

[annette]

I've done it and it works really well. Good way to fill up a super with bees on a weak hive.

I actually am thinking of trading places between 2 hives at the moment.

[G3farms]

done many times and works good.

would you turn your neighbor away from your door if his arms was loaded with groceries?!?!

[Scadsobees]

Yeah, works great.  Swapped a really weak hive this spring with a really strong one. That piddly weak hive swarmed 2 weeks later.    I wasn't expecting that...whoops. :roll:

[hardwood]

I swap hives quite a bit as well...especially with trap outs. With trap outs there is a pretty big brood break and many times the bees will start dying off before the new queen ramps up. Swapping is a great tool. Just make sure you have feed on them if you're in a dearth.

Scott