Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Method 1
Give the bees time to get used to each other. This can be accomplished quite easily:
Open the larger queen-right hive.
Place a sheet of newspaper over the open box, over the bees, and make some slits
in the paper with your hive tool.
Lift the smaller, queenless hive off its floor and place it on the box covered by the
newspaper.
Leave alone for a couple of days before checking that the colony has united.
On the very many occasions I have done this, I have found it works 100% of the time.
It's a bit slow and cumbersome, but it does work.
Method 2
The second way to get the bees used to each other is to confuse them. This can be
accomplished by changing their odour. The fastest way I have done this is to give a very
swift squirt of non-toxic room-odour spray to each box.
Open the larger queen-right hive and quickly spray the bees in the top of the box. Then,
just before placing the box with the queenless bees on top, quickly spray the bottom of
this box so that the bees all smell the same. By the time the spray wears off, the bees will
be accustomed to each other.
Other than room spray, I have also used sugar-syrup spray and flour. They all work but
I don't really like spraying chemicals or powders into hives, and sugar-syrup spraying
can cause an outbreak of robbing. My preferred method is to employ the slower, more
awkward newspaper.
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search