Package Bees

[Blacksheep]

Hello from Southern Tennessee!
I am getting a package of bees the 29th of March and am thinking of doing this with them! I have 2 hives which I have taken bees out for our queen rearing program and would like to boost them up asnd I was thinking of spraying them with sugar water and dump 1/2 in each hive. Will that work? I have never tried that!

[GSF]

With 4 or 5 years experience of beekeeping, and numerous experiments, I can truly say this;  "Maybe it will and maybe it won't." 

What about the package queen? If you try that I'd also suggest smoking them pretty good to mask the different scents. (At least that what I think it does).

[KPF]

or dump half in one hive and then for the other use the newspaper method and see what happens. Most of the beeks in my club recommend the newspaper method when combing.

[Blacksheep]

Hi Guys the reason I was going to do that type thing is that I am going to fill a mating box with comb & Brood with heavy bees this is in 3 sections of the hive(Mating Box) and the remaining I will leave the queen with the bees.I need a queen and was going to put the package queen in another hive.
I have now decided the best to do is tear down the 1 hive totally and use all the bees and keep the package intact and use the queen in that package as she was to be used.
We(Club) are in the start up phase of growing our own queens and will produce 100 queens at a time.The will be available to the club members and we might sell some.

[OldMech]

I would think that approach would end with a high chance of a dead queen. A newspaper combine would be less risky, and simply dumping the package in the yard and letting them select their own hive would be the least risky, but it would also put most of those bees into the colony with the best queen.
   After losing a few queens from adding bees in similar situations, I just dont do it anymore. Nurse bees wont fight. I have heard spraying with HBH and syrup will mask scent long enough for them to mingle, and I have heard that smoking the poo out of them and adding bees will also confuse them enough to get the job done...  painful experiences from the past still haunt me.. ( I hear the voices again!) so i no longer attempt to "indiscriminately" add bees directly to a hive.