tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8712110501673732079.post2036219238005746224..comments2024-03-22T13:57:03.401-05:00Comments on The Peace Bee Farmer: Combining Bee HivesRichard Underhillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00014016516339819639noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8712110501673732079.post-59538876600283751832015-06-02T11:11:22.517-05:002015-06-02T11:11:22.517-05:00I think I need to do this I just inspected my colo...I think I need to do this I just inspected my colony and have lost the Queen. there are four queen cells but this is a new package and I am worried about having enough worker bees by the time she starts layingAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08358040653445598467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8712110501673732079.post-58054947501035349812013-09-04T13:03:47.833-05:002013-09-04T13:03:47.833-05:00The bird house holding a feral colony bees may be ...The bird house holding a feral colony bees may be viewed at http://peacebeefarm.blogspot.com/search?q=bird+house.<br />--RichardRichard Underhillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00014016516339819639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8712110501673732079.post-75345141460553920672009-07-22T21:54:03.380-05:002009-07-22T21:54:03.380-05:00April Hay,
I’m glad that you found the newspaper t...April Hay,<br />I’m glad that you found the newspaper technique for combining hives of interest. It is especially useful for combining two hives or for re-queening a hive. Your project looks like it will be quite fun. Let me suggest that it may be quite difficult to re-queen the colony while it is in a bird house, because comb in the bird house is not removable like frames in a Langstroth hive. A workable solution for your combining project may be to take it in steps. You can transfer the bees from the bird house fairly easily by placing it on a bottom board and inside an empty hive body. Above the bird house place another hive body filled with frames of drawn comb. The bees will move up over time and occupy the frames in the upper hive body. This works especially well if you can borrow a frame of open brood from another hive and place it in the center of the upper hive body. If you place open brood in the top, nurse bees will move up immediately, drawn by brood pheromones. Place a feeder in the hive, and feed the bees during the transition. Check the upper hive body periodically. Once you find eggs in the frames of the upper hive body, you know that the queen has moved up. Now, place a queen excluder below the upper hive body to keep the queen from returning to the bird house. After a brood cycle of 21 days, you may remove the lower hive body with the bird house. You have now transferred the bees from the bird house to a Langstroth hive.<br /><br />You are now ready to combine the two hives together. This works well if you separate them with a sheet of newspaper. It does not matter which colony goes on the top. After three or four days the two colonies should be combined. With the two colonies now combined, you may re-queen using a single queen. Make sure that you de-queen this combined colony at least 24 hours before introducing a new queen. Otherwise, the bees will probably reject it. An easy way to re-queen is to place a nucleus colony with a good queen above the queenless colony, separated by a sheet of newspaper. In the time that it takes for the bees to chew through the sheet of newspaper, they will have gotten accustomed to her odor and pheromones. The entire colony will then be organized around her pheromones.<br /><br />April, I’m posting a picture of a bird house filled with honey bees that I transferred to a Langstroth hive. It was an enjoyable experience, and it produced a productive hive. Good luck. Best wishes.<br />--Richard UnderhillRichard Underhillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00014016516339819639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8712110501673732079.post-60694928911595478342009-07-20T11:28:39.367-05:002009-07-20T11:28:39.367-05:00I was looking for information about this technique...I was looking for information about this technique. You make it seem fairly easy. I have a top bar hive that I need to requeen, and a new bird house full of a hive that I want to requeen and combine with the other hive, all into a new Langstroth hive. In this case, would you recommend requeening the top bar hive first inside the main box of the L-hive and then using the newspaper method with the bird house bees after removing their queen and putting them in a honey supper above the main hive box? I am a beginner, so any advice you can give will be appreciated. Thanks.April Hayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10722654270893690990noreply@blogger.com