Merging beehives

[omnimirage]

I had a weak hive in a nucleus with about 250 bees in it, with what appears to be no queen. I then had an even weaker hive with about 100 bees in it, that did have a queen.

I heard of a trick when merging beehives, to stack the two hives on top of each other, and seperate the two colonies by paper. Then, cut a few slits into the paper. The idea goes is that the pheromones from the two colonies seap through the slits, and the bees become accustomed to each other. The bees then eat the paper, and by the time they do so and reach each other, their pheromones have mixed and they don't attack each other and instead, work together.

So I opened my 250 hive nucleus, and put paper inbetween the super and lid. I then took the 100 bee colony and all of it's waxcomb, which is about the size of my palm, and placed it on top of the paper, inside the lid. Days later, nothing much has happened. The bees don't appear to be eating the paper at all, and I feel that I made a mistake by using two layers of paper, when the hive is so incredibly weak. I'm not sure what I should do. Should I leave them as is? Should I open it up, make much bigger slits, to the size that bees can crawl through? Advice much appreciated.

[Maggiesdad]

This is my first year with bees.  I can't imagine how 100 bees could maintain a queen. And 250 queenless bees would seem to be hopelessly demoralized. If it was my situation, and I had resources, I would give them a puff of smoke and just put them together. And then pull a frame of mostly capped brood from a stronger hive and give it to them, making sure that that queen wasn't on it. They need numbers, fast.

[BeeMaster2]

With hives so small, just give them a little smoke and then join them. The real problem is that they have way too much comb to protect. Right after you join them, start removing frames. Pull a frame and shake any bees on it into the hive. If you have a nuc box, use that for this hive. Remove all but one frame, the one with brood, you might have one brood frame with each hive use both. Replace the rest with either undrawn foundation or a foundationless frames.
Jim

[BeeMaster2]

Check out this thread from Michael Bush.
http://www.beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=47569.msg411999#msg411999
Jim

[omnimirage]

I checked the bees yesterday, and figured it'd be best to provide photos, instead of descriptions:

http://imgur.com/a/lcttT

The merge was successful. There was a rip in the paper, and they must have tunneled down into such.

The other two frames of the four frame nucleus had no activity. This was midday, there probably was some flying out. I must have underestimated how many bees their was, but note, this is the two hives combined.

Besides the comb that the queened hive was laying before, there was been no new queen activity since. I didn't know I could just smoke them together. That's a very informative post thank you :)

If I was to give them capped brood, would I need to merge more bees with it, to help them nurse such?

[BeeMaster2]

I see numerous eggs in those cells. Even though they are in the bottom of the cells, I would bet you have a laying worker. There are too many eggs for it to bee a new queen.
Did the queen survive?
If so, I would remove the frame with all of those eggs and reduce it down as mentioned before.
Jim

[GSF]

That top picture has a wax moth trail in it. Watch the cells develop, if the somewhat supersize them then you know it's drone which could mean laying workers, un bred queen, young queen mis firing, or it could mean nothing at all.

[omnimirage]

I didn't even think of the possibility of a laying worker, how troublesome.

I added a bunch of brood cells and worker bees to it today, got it from a large swarm.