# Inspection Time Frame



## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

I may have killed my queen.

It may have happened while performing a split. I don't know for sure. Time frames would match up. I did the split on July 8th. I inspected the hive again on July 19th. I found very little brood, no eggs, very heavy on resources, and several queen cells in various stages of development. I think it works out time-wise if she died during the split. Assuming she died on July 8th, the new queen should have emerged by now. I imagine she will take her mating flight sometime between now and next week, and laying a couple days after. 

First question, does all that sound correct?

Second question, when should I do another inspection? Last inspection was on July 19th.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Assuming she died on July 8th, the new queen should have emerged by now. I imagine she will take her mating flight sometime between now and next week, and laying a couple days after. 

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm

"If you killed or lost a queen, how long before you'll have a laying queen again? 24 days because the bees will start from a just hatched larvae."

Queen timing is all about +-5 days... Since you think she died July 8, I'd expect to find a queen most likely on Aug 1 and if she's not laying by about Aug 10 it's probably not going to happen.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

Thanks. And thanks for all your other info. I have been to your site and it's very informative/useful. 

So when should I do an inspection? I am worried that I would be disrupting the new queen process. 

And if there are no eggs by Aug 10th, what should I do? It seems like my options would be to either introduce a mated queen, or to donate a frame of eggs from the split hive. It may be relevant to know that the parent hive is currently three deep supers and very strong, just queenless and little brood (july 19th).


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

You can give them some open brood at any time and it won't hurt anything. I tend to do that anyway just to keep them going in the meantime. It gives them the means to make a queen if they need one, but also helps add some younger bees in the meantime.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

So you are saying that I should take a frame of brood from the split hive? And is it ok to do an inspection on the parent hive if a virgin queen is present? That's not going to piss them off and make them kill her?


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

It has now been exactly 28 days from when I suspect the queen met her demise (July 7th, not the 8th as stated above). I am going to go do an inspection this evening. With any luck, I will find a new queen or at least eggs/larvae. If not, I don't really know what to do. I may need to donate a frame of capped brood from my single-super split, add it to the parent hive, and perhaps reduce the parent hive from three supers down to two.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

I did an inspection on the 4th. I found opened queen cells but no eggs. I did another inspection today and still found no eggs. What do I do? The hive has been queenless for about a month. Is it possible the queen is there and just not yet laying? Would introducing a laying queen even work at this point? What about a frame of capped brood from another hive? I am open to all options here.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

You may still have a queen and she's just not laying where you see the eggs yet. Be patient, and do as MB says, add a frame of open brood each week. This should prevent them from going Laying 'worker on you.

After about 10 more days, if you see no sign of any brood, buy a mated queen. I introduce them using a Laidlaw queen introduction cage, which is a 5" x 7" wooden rectangle 7/8" tall x 3/4" wide covered with #8 hardware cloth on one side, and has a 1" strip of sheet metal stapled to the inside perimeter and extending down below the wooden rectangle about 3/8 of an inch. 

I select a fairly flat frame of hatching brood with a little honey and pollen "bee bread" in one corner, brush off all the bees, place the mated queen on it and cover her with the Laidlaw cage. I then push the sheet metal strip down into the comb until the wood touches the surface of the comb.

There is no candy release on a Laidlaw cage. The beekeeper leaves the queen in there to begin laying eggs. The resident bees may form an attack ball over the cage with the foreign queen in it. 

After she has started laying eggs, her level of pheromones and other queen substances increases, and the resident bees accept her as their new "mom". This is somewhat aided by brood emerging under the Laidlaw cage. They are born there, and immediately accept her as the queen. 

When the beekeeper sees that the bees are indeed feeding the new queen and not forming an attack ball, he removes the Laidlaw cage and the queen gets to go about her business of laying up the rest of the hive as she sees fit.

I hope this helps. Good luck to you!


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

Unfortunately I don't have frames of brood to readily give. I have one other hive, the split. It consists of one deep super. I am not sure I can take a frame of brood from it and expect it to build up big enough to make it through the winter. Or can I?


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Best to get ahold of another beekeeper with more than one hive as soon as possible. Open brood will certainly help, and may save your colony. 

You could alternately purchase a package or preferably a nucleus colony and newspaper combine them. Worst case is you've wasted a queen that just wasn't laying yet, but the good part is that the better of the two queen s probably won the fight. Additional bees won't hurt, but you'll probably need to feed them for the rest of the year.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

At 28th days since the new queen hatched you should see some new
eggs already if she is a laying queen. If you don't see new eggs then it is time
to get a new mated queen for this hive. You can always combine them with your
strongest hive if they are indeed queen less now. Always make sure they are queen less
before doing any combine. The days are getting shorter now for the winter new bees build up.
Better hurry to make your decision. If I were you I would give them a new mated queen.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

Does anyone know where I can get a mated queen on short notice? I live in Minnesota.


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

Michael Bush said:


> You can give them some open brood at any time and it won't hurt anything. I tend to do that anyway just to keep them going in the meantime. It gives them the means to make a queen if they need one, but also helps add some younger bees in the meantime.


It will also help to prevent a laying worker situation.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Brasco - There is a problem searching for "bees for sale in Minnesota" - many sites pop up for Minnesota Hygenic bees, a strain developed by Marla Spivak and others up at the University. 

You could try Mike's Honeybees, in Forrest, Ohio. (419) 365-9922
or contact Dr. Joe Latshaw, Latshaw Apiaries in Alexandria, Ohio (614) 855-9065. 

*Oh, duh! Ask Michael Bush if he has queens or nuc's for sale !* Probably best to PM him - I don't see his contact info on his website. He's in Nehawka, Nebraska. That's probably far enough North that his bees would survive your winters quite well.

I'm sure there are others nearer to you, and you could go with Minnesota Hygenic bees, but there's at least some contacts. If no go, contact Mann Lake, Dadant and Sons, Walter Kelley Co., A.I. Root & Company, etc. Someone at each company will likely have contacts with bees for sale on short notice.

Good luck!


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

Thanks, kilo. I did search for sales in Minnesota. I will make some calls tomorrow. Also, I see that Wildflower Meadows has a shipping date of August 19th. That would put a queen in my hands on either the 20th, making the hive queenless for over six weeks. Can my hive survive until then? Even if they did, would it still be too late? I feel like there is going to be a mass dying-off coming up. 

Tomorrow I am going to inspect my new split hive. I recently added an empty super to it. I had a thought that, if this new second super has some built out comb and eggs, perhaps I could swap it with one of the supers from the queenless hive. So the small split hive would gain a large aging work force and food stores, while the queenless hive would gain some new brood, with which should buy some time until I can get a mated queen (I think it's too late for the queenless hive to queenright themselves at this point, am I right?). Does this sound like a good plan?


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

There aren't going to be many bees left after 6 weeks! That's too late. Better find another local beekeeper and newspaper-combine your bees to his temporarily, get you a really good queen, then split them back apart and introduce your new queen with a Laidlaw cage. You could weigh the bees going in, and weigh his/her bees, and take out the same % of whatever the hive weighs at a later date. They could stay all winter like that if they had to. Great opportunity to get an excellent bloodline started.

Use the local radio is you have to, or put an ad in the newspaper, on the internet - Craigslist? maybe, even a sign on a highway bridge! Find a beekeeper. 

If it turns out that the split colony is indeed queenright, you could just re-combine them back together. This long, I'd wobble on the idea of using newspaper or not. Queenless bees related to a queenright colony should be accepted back, but after how long? ... The reason I am queasy about it is I really don't want the older bees to lose 2 or 3 more days eating out the paper. If they can combine sooner, that's quite a bit better for the entire tribe.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

Can I combine three supers on top of two supers? Or should I cut it down?


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

Can I combine three supers on to two supers? Or should I cut it down?


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Is the other colony queenright? That is, did you *SEE* a queen? If so, combine them, however many boxes of bees there be. I've always had the best luck by placing the weaker colony on top of the stronger colony, especially if the larger colony is the queenright one.

The stronger colony should have home court advantage (stay in their original location), but if they are the queenless colony, and they have been queenless long enough to know it - 2 hours - it may be better to cause them some confusion first. Mist the lower, larger, queenless colony with extra-thin sugar water if combining a weaker, but queenright, colony on top.

Difficulties such as fighting arise if colonies of more or less equal strength are combined. These are sometimes better split first, re-queened with a laying queen, then combined later.

But do make certain you see a queen, and wait for her to begin laying some open brood, or it might not work.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

I have a weak queen right hive and a strong (but old) Queen less hive. I would like to bring the Queen less hive to the Queen right hive location. So I would be putting three supers on top of two supers. Opinions? Should I do a paper combine?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Here is the potential problem. If they are the old bees they will
dominate over the weak hive and will certainly killed many of the
older bees when the 2 hives intermingle. The newspaper is too fast for
such a combine. When they find the queen they will kill her for sure. My signature
here reminds me of such a combine over and over again. I have learned my lessons when
doing such.
Here is a test that is working for me so far. Because it is still a test and had not yet been perfected, take it as a reference only. Extremely high risk with fast results if it is successful.
I usually take away the entire strong hive and put the weaker hive in its place. This will allow the foragers to get inside the weaker hive. When they don't kill off the queen then I will put the strong hive that I removed on top of the queen right hive. I don't use newspapers but instead use a plastic net dish cloth with a tiny hole in the center for the bees to intermingle very slowly. This is a very high risk but most of the time it will work for me here. Whatever you do don't take a frame of bees from the old hive into the queen right hive. They will kill off the queen really quick without any hesitation. Done that many time before, ouch! If I don't raise my own queens then there will be many $25 dollars loss on my little bees experiment. Cage the queen like KC recommended is your next best option. 
I have a fairly strong Cordovan bee hive that just lost its queen due to the opossum invasion 2 days ago. I also have a fairly weak queen right nuc from 2 weeks ago and running out of room for her to lay. I can repeat my high risk fast result experiment for you if you like to see this result. But being in different location I don't know if my results will be the same as yours should you want to repeat this option after me. Let me know, o.k.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

My queen right split hive is actually doing well. I have been calling it "weak" only because it it consists of one full deep super, with a second deep added last week. Is it actually weak?


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Another great post by Beepro!

Could also try the double screen board separation for several days (giving the intended stronger colony all the capped brood), THEN his plastic sheet combine after they all smell the same...What do you think, BP?

Brasco - is it weakER than the other half of the split? Are they approximately the same? It's their relative strengths and the attitude of the 17 and 18 day old door guards and the older foragers that will make the difference.

If your queen is laying, DO give the queenless colony a a frame with open brood, esp <1 day old larva.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

I am doing an inspection of the split hive this evening. I will know more then. I imagine, at best, the two hives will be of equal strength. Though, the queenless hive will have been queenless for five weeks.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

The split hive is doing well. I was hoping they had expanded a bit into the new super but they have not. I am going to check the queenless hive tomorrow. If there are still no eggs I am going to combine them. 

So I figure I would reduce the queenless hive from three supers to two. I would like to bring the queenless hive to the queenright hive location. Or should I do it the other way? Should I put the queenright hive on top or bottom?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Right on, KC for the strength of the older bees!
Very good assessment of the hive situation.

The intention is to keep the queen less hive brood less so that they are more willing to accept the new queen and all of its eggs and broods.
After 5 weeks, they are very hopeless by now and a bit discouraged to make a new queen. Their last resort is to make the drone bees. And we will not let that happen, right.
So by keeping them hopeless they are forced to accept the new queen when you combine them. Give them a frame of open brood then they think they may have a chance. Last night I did a partial combine by placing the 5 frame queen right nuc on top of the stronger 10 frame deep hive with 90% foragers. Here are the steps:

1) Open the top cover of the strong hive A. And put a flexible plastic dish net cloth over the hive to contain the bees. At the center of the dish cloth cut out a small hole and put a duct tape over it. This step already done before hand. Now the bees can smell and touch each others but cannot mingle yet.
2) Next, put one empty hive box C on top of hive A and the dish cloth.
3) Open the top cover of the queen right nuc hive B. And shake off the bees back to the hive.
4) Transferred the 5 frame along with the queen into hive box C.
5) Put another empty hive box E on top of hive box C. 
6) Lastly, put the top cover on. And leave 1 small gap for the older foragers to get out. This is very important because you want to save all of the forager bees. Fighting only lead to death at the end.
7) Put a plastic sheet over the top cover with a piece of brick on it. Now the bees can get out but cannot get back inside.


Hive configuration:

E--Empty hive box.
C--the queen and 5 frame of bees.
---small piece of duct tape over the hole-<<---white plastic dish cloth
A--stronger hive, old foragers.

Today at 7pm, I open hive box C to inspect. But first took off hive box E that is there for the extra ventilation since it is summer time here. 

All the older foragers had gone back to the old location. Some orienting at the hive box E location but cannot get inside because there is a piece of opaque plastic sheet over the hive box. The foragers from the nuc hive are forced to go back to the original location where anoter nuc hive with developing queen cells is wating for them to go inside. Now all the foragers are safe without fighting each others when I take the duct tape off the dish cloth. After the duct tape was off within 20 minutes many of the roaming bees, almost 2 frame full went through the small hole to intermingle with the nuc bees. Now you know how strong this 10 frame deep is. Only a handful of nurse bees are left in the nuc hive when I first inspected it. The queen is still alive. Many of the eggs/larvae/capped broods have no bees on them. Instantly, this is a good sign of acceptance by the queen less hive.
If this process is successful then I will have a combined hive by tomorrow. Since this is a new strong laying queen it should not be a problem. 
The only potential problem is that there are 2 developing queen cells in hive A below. Since they have not been capped yet it may or may not affect the queen's acceptance. They
may tear the cells down or let them hatch. If the queen got accepted then I will go in to move the cells to another nuc hive--X or Z jars.
I will give you the latest update before you attempt yours.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

I have 10 queenright frames. I have roughly 30 queenless frames. Can I bring the queenless frames to the queenright location? Can I just put the queenright box on top of the queenless boxes doing a paper combine?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Can I bring the queenless frames to the queenright location? 
No, doing so will cause the queen to die. Because they are thinking that the queen is foreign and will balled her to death. There is very little chance to save her. My signature said so. How many laying queens I have to kill to learn my lessons.

Can I just put the queenright box on top of the queenless boxes doing a paper combine? 
Yes, you can but many foragers will die first because the queen less hive is stronger I would assume they are. You can weaken the 30 frames hive first by moving it to a new location. All the foragers will fly back to the original location where you can put the 10 frames queen right hive there. So it is like the 2 hives swap the location. The risk here is at 50/50% chance that they will accept or kill the queen. 

At the 10 frames hive location put a frame of open broods and a frame of pollen for all the foragers to fly in. Then just before the sunset when all the foragers are inside the hive, take the 2 frame of bees to your queen right hive.
After the queen got accepted, you can now put the 2 remaining queen less hives on top of the queen right hive. Like I said there is risk involved of killing the queen.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

So I did another inspection tonight. No eggs. No larvae. Just a ton of capped honey, nectar, pollen, and empty cells. Still lots of bees though. It has now been 37 days of queenless. My split hive, which is queenright (I bought a mated queen) seems to be doing well. They have not yet expanded into the second super. So obviously I need to do something. As I mentioned earlier, the soonest I can order a mated queen is the 20th of this month. That is a whole week away though, putting the hive queenless for over six weeks. That won't leave many bees left to care for eggs.

I need to somehow combine these hives. I've gotten a lot of advice here and I really appreciate it. I think I finally understand what people are saying about the problem with combining hives and how the foragers will die. So what about this... I am sure the bees will survive another few days. What if I took the three queenless supers and brought them to the queenright location (about three miles away). I put them ON TOP of the queenright super, separated by a double screen, with the hive openings facing the opposite direction. What I am thinking is that if it sits this way for two or three days, all the foragers in the queenless hives will reorient themselves flying out in a different direction than the queenright hive below. The queenright hive's foragers shouldn't mix at all with the queenless hives' foragers. After a few days, the queen's scent should mix up with the queenless hive. Since they have been queenless for so long, I would imagine they would accept her pretty readily. After a few days, I can remove the double screen and turn the three top supers around. As a precaution, I could cage the queen for a couple days afterwards to make sure they don't ball her. 

Thoughts?


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

You'll probably have to change to a single screen board before combining them, so they can touch each other without fighting. The queen products will be traded if they are touching.

Beepro's method sounds like he's really onto something - I have not tried it. 

The double screen board has worked for me before, but I have never gone 37 days without a queen. The Laidlaw queen introduction cage would have been in place by that time and the bees would have accepted her by then. 

I the case where queen introduction was being seriously challenged by recalcitrant AHB, I inserted a double screen board for 3 days, then let them combine with a new, foreign queen under a Laidlaw cage, and her colony. 10 days later, she was released. She successfully converted the AHB colony to Italian / AMM cross. Her grandaughter is currently running the same colony.

In this situation, I killed the AHB queen, left that colony queenless for 3 1/2 hours, placed the freshly-mated, Italian / AMM crossed queen under a Laidlaw cage on her own comb of emerging brood, boosted her colony with 6 emerging brood from Italian bees, placed a DSB over the Italian hive, and placed the AHB on top.

3 days later, I removed the DSB - no apparent fighting when the first box was replaced, so I stacked the other AHB box on top (total 5 deeps tall, but the Italian / German Black bee cross was at least twice as populous as the AHB). 5 days after the combine, I moved the Laidlaw cage and the queen, which was filled with brood. 10 days after the combine, I removed the Laidlaw cage. No aggressive behavior was observed. The queen went right to work laying up open cells around the laid pattern from under the cage.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

You don't have to move the hives 3 miles away to combine them. Whenever you combine some bees still reorient to the new location and some even going into your queen right hive as well. There is no way around it and much like the way I did mine. The only difference is that mine is at a closer location few feet away. 
With your method, many foragers will be lost and died because at the sign of daylight they will fly straight out. When they tried to go home they are lost thinking that the location of the original hive is still at the same coordinate. For example, it is the same as after you moved to a new house you lost the address and direction. Your GPS cannot pick up the new address's location therefore you are lost. Cannot go back to the old house (sold, moved, not there anymore) and cannot reorient to the new house (internal GPS cannot pick up the signals.) All are lost bees!
In order to share the same scent they must have a way to touch each others. So a single screen will work. A double is not that effective for this application. If you don't have the dish cloth from the dollar store then the screen will do. You can also cut a hole in the middle of the screen and put a piece of duct tape over it so that they can spend more time with each others before the actual combine. 

O.k., going back to my method of the small hole in the middle of the hive. At 6:15am this morning, I open the top 5 frame hive for a quick inspection. Many young nurse bees 
are covering over the broods and larvae. Not many foragers at the top hive box that they went out foraging already. Many more young bees are at the top box trying to crawl out so I quickly closed the hive cover. But before closing the hive, I pulled back the dish cloth to open it more for the bees to move up. 
I found the queen and she was still alive. The nurse bees fed her until almost double her size--fat and plump all over. Tonight, I did an entire hive combine by moving the pollen frames to the side of the bottom box. All the empty cell drawn frames got alternate with a frame of bees attached. So, EBEB, etc. until 10 frames filled up the bottom box. The queen on a frame got put in the center of the hive box. The other 4 frames without broods are at the top box for the Fall flow if there is any. This is an easy method to combine the 2 hives, one weak while the other one stronger.
The writing seems like a lot but the actual moving of the hive and putting on extra hives only take about half hour to do. Everything is already prepared in advance.
This method of combining is all captured on my camera to document the entire process. 
So go ahead and make a single screen for your combine. Don't forget the hole in the middle with a duct tape on before the actual combine. Using this method, the queen right hives are at the top and the queen less hives are at the bottom. No need to move the queen less hives. Now the question is, are you locking the queen right hive inside for a few days or give them an upper entrance at the top hive? My method captured all the foragers and none died or got lost.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

My two hives are three miles apart. If I need to combine them, I would prefer to do it at my queenright location as the queenless location is not as ideal. You talk about the bees getting lost. I have been told that when moving a hive, if you put a stick or branch or something in front of the exit, the bees will reorient themselves immediately as they will know they are not in the right place. I did this when I did my split. Wouldn't this be much the same as that? And I have to ask, what is a "flexible plastic dish net cloth"? I googled it and came up with nothing. Do you mean just a regular dish cloth?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Some will reorient and some will not. The ones that do will make it.
So if you don't have a lot of foragers then don't worry too much. If
90% are then you might lost some bees. You will noticed a reduction in
foragers or bees in your hives if they do not. On a split hive you will see
that some foragers still try to go back to their old location, right. This is
in their nature. Either way do expect some foragers to be lost in this transition.
Because not much time is on your side, do this in a hurry and don't worry too much. You can always get a new mated queen just in case.
If you think the location is ideal then do it. As long as there is a laying queen in there the population will rebuild in time for the winter. 
Give them plenty of feed to maintain the queen's laying if she survive this change. Mite control is very important now as the colony grow because of the combine. 
A piece of dish cloth that is made of flexible rubber with holes in it like a net. This is an ideal cloth for covering the bees so that they will not get into the upper hive box to contain them. Poke a small hole in the middle and you will have a combining cloth until the bees get used to the new scent. It is not a regular dish washing cloth. Because the difference is this one has lots of small holes on it. The .99 cents dollar store carry them.
The situation of where to do the combine is more of a common sense. You do want to choose a location that is easy for you to take care of the bees in the coming Spring time.
Or should anything happens to the colony you want to be there to resolve the issue at hand asap. For example, a quick walk outside the backyard is faster than driving 3 miles to get to the nearest trouble hive. The trick is to put the weaker colony on top of the stronger one. Because the strong one will overwhelm the weaker one in no time as I already demonstrated in my combine. Before, every year I killed at least 6 queens because I don't know the proper method. And I kept on raising more queens through out the entire year to replaced them. Now that I got this method down knowing the bees' reaction to a new queen, there is very minimal queen lost this year. If you count the number of dead queens in my queen juice bottle, there is about $300 dollars worth of dead queens in there over the years. 

White flexible dish cloth:


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Kilo, I have an extra mated queen if you still need one. 
Found two in one hive that were trying to kill each other but were too fat to do the job. 
That hive is pretty much full of eggs so they both were laying up until the day before yesterday. 

PM me and I'll give you details on how to get it.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I don't get it!
KC did not ask for a new mated queen here. He is giving advice to brasco18.
It is brasco18 who needed a new queen in case his did not make it on the combine. Because
his strong hives is queen less now. I think the shipping
distance is closer if you send him one than to CA. Maybe brasco18 should
send you a PM instead.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

aunt betty said:


> ...Found two in one hive that were trying to kill each other but were too fat to do the job. ...


Now that's funny! They might be good queens.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

I did the combine on Saturday. Currently the two hives are separated by a screen. I figured I would give them a couple of days like this to let the queen scent get through the queenless hive. Today I am going to remove the screen. I will cage the queen to one frame for a day to make sure they don't kill her. 

Doing this move was horrible. I was too comfortable with the bees. I let my guard down basically. Kinda forgot that they can be assholes! I got stung four times, once one the tip of my nose (a bee got inside my veil somehow). 

If someone is interested in giving me a queen, I would be happy to take it. Though, I need to decide if I want to keep the hive this way for the winter, or if I want to split it back before winter.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Always, always wear the proper full body protection when
inspecting or moving the bees. This lesson I have learned already....
the hard way of course, especially when moving an aggressive bee hive.
I think it is better if aunt betty send you the extra queen bee she has as she is closer to you. 
A queen less hive is much more aggressive than a queen right hive. Once queen right then things will settle down back to normal again.
I think you should maintain the current hive situation until things go back
to normal. In 2 more months will be the coming of Fall and winter. So let the queen lay for now. 
You can always make a split or 2 when they grow again in the Spring time. When you caged the queen make 
sure there are empty cells for her to lay. I think a laying queen will maintain her queen scent the strongest.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

I have definitly learned my lesson. Never again without smoke and full jacket. 

Tonight I will be removing the screen that separates the hives. They had almost four days if queen scent. Do you think I even need to cage the queen?

Just to clarify, here is how my hive is currently configured (arrows show entrance. On the queenless supers, the entrance is a one inch hole.)

<-Queenless
<-Queenless
<-Queenless
Screen
Queenright->

Also, I will need to turn the "queenless" hive around to face the same direction and the "queenright" hive. I figured I would do it in the evening when most foragers are home. I will turn them around and plug the bottom two queenless supers. I will leave the top one open for ventilation, but will put a branch in front of it to help them reorient. Does this sound like a good plan? You guys have been great. I appreciate everyone's advice. What do you think I should do with the queen? Cage her, not cage her?


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

beepro said:


> Always, always wear the proper full body protection when
> inspecting or moving the bees. This lesson I have learned already....
> the hard way of course, especially when moving an aggressive bee hive.
> I think it is better if aunt betty send you the extra queen bee she has as she is closer to you.
> ...


I'm not a woman. Long story but the name is my internet "mark twain". If I use my true identity super villain women from my high school appear and don't play nice. Sorry for the confusion. 
In the 80's I stole the name from Paul Harvey News and Comments. He'd run an ad and say it was "aunt betty approved". (everyone has an aunt betty). Was big into first-person shooter games and thought it'd be cute if I took a woman's name so when you got "fragged" it said "aunt betty kilt you". Cute.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Well, "Aunt Betty", I thought those kind of "queens" hung out in San Francisco dressed like pink cowboys. I was talking about bees - the female honeybee with the long abdomen who lays the eggs.

Tomfoolery aside, Thanks for keeping the fembot internet trolls off this site. I don't hate the female of the human species, but I've had a similar stalker myself, and it takes up the peace officers' time, which they do not appreciate. That kind of "not nice" behavior could really screw up a queen rearing calendar during the peak of the season. Hurts the bottom line of the financials. It also makes your trailer comment a riot of a joke! Good one.

Brasco - as a minimum, a bee jacket. A full jumpsuit is better, an Ultra Breeze and tall boots is better yet. Hat / veil combinations are for folks who drive brand new Hummers or Range Rovers, wear Gucci or Christian Dior suits or Prada dresses, play golf at Spyglass Hill or Pebble Beach with Tiger and Barrack, drink tea with their little finger in the air, and own ONE perfectly white (or pink with mauve trim), pre-assembled hive from a starter kit. They should keep peaceful Buckfast bees, never feral X Italians. That type usually has a beekeeper half-life of less than 3 years. You're on your way to becoming a beekeeper with a bee suit that smells like propolis, that has kissed the smoker a time or two, and has too many patches to see well enough to graft. Keep at it, you'll be a lifer.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

KC, your posts always amaze me and constructive too.

Do plug up the top 2 super holes. Actually you don't need the multiple entrances if you just put the queen right (weaker) hive on top of the strong hives. Remember to give them full wide entrance access after you orient all the hives to the same direction. With that many bees they have not yet accumulated to the new queen's scent--supers too tall and wide apart. For the queen's safety it is better if you orient the hive all in the same direction tomorrow. Having killed so many queens in my short short 4 years, to do this right, here are the steps:

1) Orient all the hives to the same direction.
2) Put the queen right hive at the top of the hives. Screen is still on.
3) Give the queen right hive a small entrance at the top.
4) Close off/plug up the 2 upper supers. Reason is: More field bees will be forced to intermingle with the queen right hive. Field bees and the guard bees are
detrimental to the new queen. After things settled down and normal again you can reopen these holes.
5) Give the bottom super a full wide open bottom entrance. This will be their main entrance from now on unless you use an upper entrance.
6) Some bees will be mixed in from the bottom (queen right hive) and the top
entrance (queen less hive.) This is good to disperse the scent through out the hives further.
7) Wait another day or 2 for the bees to settle down.
8) Once settled down, peel off a small corner of the screen (2 bee space) for the bees to intermingle. Do not take the screen off yet. Because the bees still need more time to accumulate to each others. This will be a very gradual transition because of too many bees in the supers. And the scent has not yet fully disburse through out the hives.
9) Do a hive check on the top super where the queen right hive is at. When you see a significant increase in the bee number then you can take the whole screen off. This could take a couple more days. 
9A) Close off/plug up the queen right hive's entrance. All the bees should reorient to the bottom entrance in a day or 2. This will further mixed in the queen's scent at the bottom supers.
It is worth it to wait that long because you are not in a hurry. You still have time for the bees to build up before the winter. Doing a combine like this takes time. No choice because the supers have too many bees that have not yet converted to the new scent. Any drastic move without the patience involved will lead to the queen's death. Sometimes certain things in life is worth the wait! And beekeeping is one of them.
Don't worry if you lose this queen as aunt betty will have a spare one for you.
Thanks aunt betty! If you take the screen off all at once then you need to caged the queen for her safety. This is rather risky! And inconvenience because she is at the bottom box. 
10) I don't think you need to caged the queen with the 2 small bee space open on the screen. This should give them plenty of time to intermingle and accumulate to the queen's scent, one day or 2. Since this is a very gradual and time consuming introduction, the queen need to roam through out the frames to convert all the bees that got through the small bee screen space. Caging her is not that effective using this process to disburse her scent through out the hive. You got the mixed in foragers and the ones going through the small bee hole screen.
11) Once the queen is laying and got accepted then you can add another box for her to lay. This will be a 2 box hives going into the winter if this is your management style. 
12) Move the queen right hive to the bottom and all the supers on top. You can now remove the screen! Only one big bottom entrance is in use along with the super entrances.

You see, my process is simple to allow the bees to mixed in without endangering the queen through a gradual convenient process. You only have to put the queen right box once at the bottom.


If I can do it so can you!: New queen accepted and brood pics. Dish plastic cloth with a small stick in the hole.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Brilliant, BP! You're getting as good as Dr. C.C. Miller was at hive management. I'm going to write that post down or print it, laminate it, and tack it to the rafter of the bee shed.

Brasco18 - steps 11 and 12 above could even wait until all the queenless bees have expired. They don't last much more than 6 weeks this time of year.

Also a suggestion - If it gets murderous hot in the next week, all those plugged up holes are going to make it hot inside. I think I'd consider making a shade tarp over the hive until it's time to unplug all the holes. I use 24" rebar sections as stakes, and bend 3/4" or 1" PVC pipes to act as "tent hoops", spread the tarp and attach with 6" clothespin clamps, but any shade device will help.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

That's a lot of info. Ok, just to reiterate through visualization:

Current configuration:

<-queenless
<-queenless
<-queenles
screen
queenright-> (main entrance)


New configuration (tonight or tomorrow):

queenright->
screen (make small hole after a day)
queenless
queenless
queenless-> (main entrance)


After day with hole in screen:

queenless-> (hole for ventilation)
queenless
queenless
queenright-> (main entrance)


Does this look like what you are saying?

Perhaps I should have mentioned that I did give the queenless hive a frame of brood from the queenright hive, and gave the queenright hive a frame of resources from the queenless hive. I figured that would make them feel better and would help get the queen scent around.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

gg


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Yes, you got it!
The purpose of the small hole on the screen is to allow them to
venture into the queen less hive above. Without this the queen's
scent is very much limited. At the same time you don't want a full
force to swarm the queen right hive. They will very eagerly if you
take the screen off all at once. When in the confusion some will
balled the queen. That is why this process need to be a gradual one.
It does not matter now since the foragers will fly into the queen right
hive when they return trying to find their entrance. I would not give them
a frame of open brood or capped brood because they will unite as one eventually.
If there is a young larva then the queen less hive will make a queen cell depending on how far away, even one super above. Some eggs will not hatch for some reason for a very long time past the 5th day. These eggs, when they hatched they can be turn into a queen cell. The last thing you want to do is to have a supercedure in the middle of the Fall when no more drones are left. I would put the frame back into the queen right hive at the very side end of the hive and allow the queen to expand naturally with another box of empty comb frames if you have one. 
KC, I put a 1" foam board on top of my hives all summer long with hot temp. in the 100s sometime. A super box or piece of brick will hold it down. Been like this every year for the last 3 years. If you don't have the foam then a piece of plywood will do. Screw the ends into 2 stakes and the other end onto the hive with a brick on it much like a front porch for shading the hive.



1" foam in the hot summer:


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

Yesterday I shifted things around. The new configuration is this:

Queenright-> (one-inch hole)
Screen with small hole in it.
Queenless
Queenless
Queenless-> (main entrance)

I checked the frame of brood I gave to the queenless hive. No queen cells. I figured it was safe to leave it. I also did a full inspection of the queenright hive. I found the queen, which was good. 

Everyone was fairly calm so I added the screen with a hole in it right away. I put the hole in the corner (it's about the size of a nickel). I figured they had six days of being on top of the queenright hive. This shouldn't be too big of a step for them. I will give it till tomorrow and then I will remove the screen.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

If you put a queen excluder on top of the queen right hive then
at inspection time, maybe 5-10 days later, you can find the queen
sooner. That is if you want to see if the queen is still alive and
got accepted that there are no queen cells made. If not then you might have to go through all those
hive boxes to find her. I do night inspection on the weekend to minimize the hive disturbance. 
Good luck with this one. I have a good acceptance feeling for her already. It is better than the caged queen 
method in which the new queen have a potential to get balled. Gradual introduction over time is the key here.
Testing our patience, really!


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

Queen excluder. Good idea. Maybe I will put one right in the middle so I only have to check two supers.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

If the queen is there then you know that she made it.
What if you cannot find her on a hive inspection. Then you might think
that she is dead. Putting an excluder on will limit your inspection area. If she 
is not a marked queen then finding her might be a challenge with all those bees.
The purpose is a quick inspection to see if she is still there and alive. If you cannot find her then
you might think she wander too far from her brood nest. Going through all those frames trying to 
find her and cannot at the end is a waste of your time and stressed the bees out. Too much interruption I think
for a newly combine hive. If you have the drawn comb then put another box on top for her to lay. She may be at the 
lower box if the brood nest is not yet full. Be quick and not too long interruption. Common sense is to put the excluder over one
box and not the 3rd box above.


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## brasco18 (Jul 28, 2015)

Common sense is to not start a fire under your hive. I dont think it's "common sense" to put a queen excluder in a certain position. Let's not be over dramatic.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

This week is the hatch week for the new broods that I combine the queen right hive
with a strong queen less hive. This was the first hive that I did the combine before 
posting here. Her second round of open broods is about to be cap. There are some mites
in there but not that many. Overall, the mite level is very low with many healthy young bees that hatched.
Since I use the small cells I noticed that many young bees are a bit smaller than usual but healthy. Not sure
if this is the result of the small cell or what. All along the stationary OAV gadget has been working to keep
the mite level low. Did another stationary OA treatment last night. There should be another 2 hatch maybe 3 before going into the cold winter months here. 
By then the deep hive box should be full of young bees going into winter. Will try to locate some drawn comb to expand this hive to 2 deeps before this Fall which is
just around the corner. Seems like the Fall and winter is a bit early this year almost like last year. No hive burn up so far. Playing with fire is dangerous!


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

If you are watching, Aunt Betty, just curious how the combine went? Today is 9 / 11 / 2015. I've been hoping you got away with it.


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