# adding brood to weak hive



## BigDaddyDS (Aug 28, 2007)

Your question is a little broad.

If the weak hive is strong enough, they MAY fight with the adhering bees on the supplemental frame you're adding. But, more than likely, if they were strong enough to fight, you wouldn't be wanting to add a frame of brood, now would you?

Make sure you aren't accidentally inserting the queen. Don't bother giving eggs or uncapped larva. And leave all the adhering bees right on the frame so nurse bees will be able to keep the brood warm. If you leave the newly strengthened hive in the same yard as the "parent" hive, your field foragers will fly out off of the strenghening frame, and return to the parent hive. Your nurse bees, who haven't taken orientation flights yet, won't know any other home and will stay put. Likewise, your hatching brood will know only this hive and call it home too.

DS


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

Here's what I do: Mix up a very weak solution of sugar water, add some vanilla flavoring, put that in a small spray bottle. Add enough vanilla to where you spray it, it smells like vanilla. Then pull out your capped brood frame, check for queen, spray all the adhering bees with vanilla syrup, spay some in the weak hive and combine. This covers up the hive smells and they don't fight, at least in my experience. It also works well to spray bees then shake them into weak splits.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I add frames of brood with adhering bees all the time with no problems.


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## hankdog1 (May 17, 2008)

Hope this is the place to put this i just currently got into beekeeping. Bought 3 swarms almost 3 weeks ago off a local beekeeper. I've looked into all 3 one has already drawn out the foundation and i've supered it. One has all but 3 frames drawn out. The last and final one has one frame drawn out and started on the second one. My Question would be do i need to wait and see or put a couple of frames from one of the other hives into the stuggleing one? I haven't been able to spot the queen in it and oddly they are working on the outside frame first working thier way to the middle. So would the better solution be to maybe oder a queen?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

A frame of eggs and open brood is good insurance that won't interfere with whatever is going on, but will help them with whatever the situation is. If they need a queen, they have the option to rear one. If they already have a virgin queen who isn't laying yet, you haven't wasted a queen.


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## hankdog1 (May 17, 2008)

Thanks i'm kinda spooked about adding a frame of broad since i don't have marked queens in my other hives. I would like to get my buddy up here to take a look at them but he's covered up catching swarms and splitting hives right now. Would it be okay to give them another week or two before i do that so i can get a more hands on opinion from him about changing out frames of broad?


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## Riki (Jan 31, 2007)

If temperature is not an issue, you can add a frame of capped brood without adult bees (you said you couldn't spot the queen) to boost the hive population, and, after that, give them some open brood (from where they could raise a new queen).


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## Kyle Meadows (Jul 14, 2006)

Thanks for all the replies. My apologies for not responding sooner. I really appreciate everyone's input.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Thanks i'm kinda spooked about adding a frame of broad since i don't have marked queens in my other hives.

Then shake off all the bees. If there are no bees there are no queens.  You could even shake all the bees off into the brood nest and IF you use excluders (which i don't) you could put it above the excluder and the nurse bees will come up and cover it.  Viola! No queen.


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## Cold Bees (May 18, 2007)

*Thanks again BeeSource & Mr Bush*

Well,

I know if I search 'hard enough' on BeeSource I will find my answer. I too discovered a brrodless hive last night and have the same questions, and of course, BeeSource et al have the answer, I'll put a frame of eggs and brood with workers on it in from a healthier hive, without the queen.

You never know how many others are in the same boat with these problems, I love the answers here.


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## Tripp (Mar 31, 2018)

As always, when I have a bee question, googling it helps me find an answer, and if I want an answer I can trust I add "Michael Bush" to my search, just to see what he has to say about it!


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## LAlldredge (Aug 16, 2018)

My fave equilizer is Ian Steppler A Canadian Beekeepers Blog on YouTube. He’s a pro and has a strategy for taking the strong down and boosting weaker hives. Getting his hives to the same strength evens his workload out and gets them prepped properly for the harvest. He has some great vids on the subject. Highly recommended.

He does not tolerate bad queens or dysfunctional colonies though. Different strategy used for them.


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## Tripp (Mar 31, 2018)

LAlldredge said:


> My fave equilizer is Ian Steppler A Canadian Beekeepers Blog on YouTube. He’s a pro and has a strategy for taking the strong down and boosting weaker hives. Getting his hives to the same strength evens his workload out and gets them prepped properly for the harvest. He has some great vids on the subject. Highly recommended.
> 
> He does not tolerate bad queens or dysfunctional colonies though. Different strategy used for them.


I watch his videos as well, and while I enjoy them, some of his techniques don't scale down to my backyard apiary from his commercial one. Doesn't make the content any less interesting, it just some of it not quite as applicable to my situation.


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## LAlldredge (Aug 16, 2018)

Tripp said:


> I watch his videos as well, and while I enjoy them, some of his techniques don't scale down to my backyard apiary from his commercial one. Doesn't make the content any less interesting, it just some of it not quite as applicable to my situation.


Totally agree. Ian is pretty advanced and likewise there are things hobbyists can do that he doesn't have time for. Now that I'm going into my 4th year I can watch with better discernment. His queen breeding operation is brilliant but not for my size apiary. Still, I love how he takes you through his decision making. My views about nutrition are largely derived from watching him.


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