Combining Hives

[keito]

Looking for some advice. I have two really good hives and two that I do not think have queens. I don't want to upset the good hives but don't want to loose the bees in the queenless hives either. What should I do? Combine the two queenless hives and then  add it to one of the good hives? Or add one queenless to each of the good hives? I have never combined hives before so I am skeptical. Thanks for any information.

[AllenF]

First, make 100 percent sure you are queenless.  If you are queenless, then need to determine if you need to save the hive or not.   You can add a frame of brood (young brood, look for eggs) to save the hive.  If the hive is really hurting, newspaper combine.   If they are drone layers, shake the bees out and put the hive up for next spring.  You just have to judge what you have and what you can do.

[JP]

Like Allen mentioned, you really need to go through those two hives and determine if they are in fact queenless. Do you have a mentor or bee club you could have help you assess what's going on?


...JP

[BlueBee]

Other options would be to move your weak hives into a nuc and buy a couple of queens (if they are indeed queenless) and overwinter in a nuc.  Probably not too late to do that in MS.  We overwinter nucs up here in the frigid north.

[keito]

Thanks for all the advice