# Conjoing two hives



## brad25 (Apr 5, 2016)

I have two top bar hives witch one of the hives are doing really well. The other hive not so much queen is not laying good and bee population is low. I'm thinking of penching her and putting the bees in the good hive. What's the best method for this?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I have done it just smoking it a lot and combining. I've also done it with newspaper. Right behind where the cluster is in the hive you want to put them both in, staple some newspaper in to make a wall, then add the rest then empty bars to fill the rest. The newspaper is probably safer.


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## pjigar (Sep 13, 2016)

I can tell you what not to do! I had a very small nuc size colony with dead queen at the end of fall. I suspected some LWB in that nuc so I just shook the bees in front of another hive hoping that the young ones will be allowed in the new hive. Wrong. They all just went back to original nuc location and just formed a swarm. I had to put them back in the nuc after few days!

I have done newspaper combine with few 1/2"-1" slits with hive tool. Make sure there are no holes in the newspaper and new paper covers the entire box. Be sure to find and pinch unwanted queen.


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## brad25 (Apr 5, 2016)

So I can make a newspaper frame in the good hive and put all the bars with comb and brood and bees from the bad hive on the other side and let them combine? Do I spray the news paper with sugar water? How long should it take for the bees to eat through?


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## brad25 (Apr 5, 2016)

brad25 said:


> So I can make a newspaper frame in the good hive and put all the bars with comb and brood and bees from the bad hive on the other side and let them combine? Do I spray the news paper with sugar water? How long should it take for the bees to eat through?


Can anyone verify if this is correct as I have to do this today.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

That should work. You shouldn't need to spray any sugar water. When I do combines where both hives have a queen, I pinch the one queen and then combine in about 30 minutes to an hour later, without any newspaper needed. The hive that had the queen pinched will then know they are queenless and will readily combine with the queen right hive portion with no fighting, as they've not been queenless long enough to decide to start making their own queen cells. 

Using newspaper I do if I know that both hives being joined are both queenright. Then I use the newspaper to help slow the join and reduce the fighting that might occur from both parts having a queen.

Good luck in your joining.


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