# How best to combine?



## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

Hi Apis, not much good news but we were all here at some time in our beekeping lives! I nursed alot of hives through winter in my early days and had many disappointments. It is pretty late in the season to do any kind of emergency combine. A large healthy winter cluster and strong queen are critical to the bees surviving the winter. You need enough young bees to keep a cluster warm and for later winter brood rearing to start. Bees need large stocks of winter food and a well organized brood nest as well. It does not sound like you have either of those. The handful of bees you have left are already late in their bee lives and you just don't have enough season to raise the necessary two or three brood cycles of brood. Having said that, if you have a few 70F+ days ahead a newspaper combine with the caged queen released with the bees which have accepted her is what you could try. Good Luck, always remember this is (sometimes painful) learning process, spring and a new season will be here and you will do better next year.


----------



## Apismellifera (Oct 12, 2014)

Thanks for the response, Joel.

Since I've never ordered queens I have no readymade cages. I have clips but am afraid that she could be killed in one. I have metal gutter screen with holes about 1/16". If I put her in a cage made of this with half a dozen attendants will they be able to be fed by other bees until I release her in a few days? 

Or unnecessary to cage her with a newspaper combine? I can drill a sizeable hole in the follower, put her and her clan in the "front" of the hive, the other bees in the back with their own entrance, and tape 2 or 3 layers of newspaper over the hole. By the time they chew thru they'll all be one happy family?

Not much to lose, perhaps she can put some brood on before winter really sets in, we've got a good month or so before it starts to chill... Days 65-70F, nights 45-50F now.


----------

