Newspaper combine

[GSF]

I did a newspaper combine yesterday afternoon. I also pinched the defected queen in one of the hives. It seems I remember it taking 2-3 days before they'd chew through. I put two sheets of paper down. I noticed there were a lot more bees coming and going. I pulled the dry oil tray pan out to see if they got started. It was full of newspaper fluff. The bees coming in were bringing tons of pollen back. Doesn't this seem a little soon?

[ggileau]

I have only done it a few times but I believe it only takes a day or so. I usually put two layers but they seem to be determined to get through. Good luck, hope it works out

[KeyLargoBees]

If the queen was defective and had low pheromone its possibly the hive considered itself marginally queenless? And in that case accepted the situation quickly and wanted to get back to work. Dunno...i have done it twice with queen-less cutouts and both time it only took 24 hours(at least thats when I checked)...so its always been fast for me.

[BeeMaster2]

I have done it several times. The first one completely removed the paper in 2 days. Just the paper that was under the box and outside the box was left. Sometimes I have had to go in and remove paper that was left in a week or 2 later. It all depends on the bees attitude.
Jim