# Adding package/new queen to weak hive



## NCSUbeeKEEPER (Feb 28, 2011)

You did kind of get ahead of yourself by killing the queen this early. I would install the package as normal into a deep. After about a week goes by open new colony to assure that the queen has been accepted. If she has been released, do a newspaper combine. Put the weak queenless colony on top of the queenright colony at the queenright location. The weak colony will more than likely have started building emergency queen cells. They should be torn down by the bees once the two colonies are combined. Keyword: "SHOULD BE". Your new queen could be superseded if the bees decide to raise the emergency queens. If this is going to be a problem for you (and it should be, as you have paid for good genetics) I would cut all the emergency queen cells out of the weak hive before the combine. 

I'm eager to see if anyone on here as a simpler approach (I seem to always lean towards the hard way)


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

I agree that making an adjustment before the item arrives is getting way ahead. You never know when something will go wrong and you're left without anything to work with at all, no queen, no package, no nothing.

Having never done this myself, the following is only conjecture. You should be able to take the frames out of the queenless hive and let them sit in the sun for ten minutes or so with the bees still on them. Smoke the hive really well to confuse all scents and pheromones. Dump the package in and place the queen cage and frames back in the hive. The mass confusion SHOULD allow everything to work without a major problem.

I have done this when mixing frames from different hives with no problems. When you put them back together, they know immediately that something is wrong or different, and you can tell by the buzz. But they don't seem immediately to know what to do about it. It's this confusion and reordering of the hive that allows the mixing with no problems.


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## rmadean (Jun 20, 2010)

Anyone else have any thoughts on this. Solomon, I was thinking the same thing about adding the package to the existing hive. I'd then introduce the queen as usual, maybe adding a day or two to ensure she's accepted. 
Am I way off on this?


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## HONEYDEW (Mar 9, 2007)

I would think your going to have a small war on your hands so be prepared to see a few more dead bees than normal and don't just dump the queen in leave her caged


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## rmadean (Jun 20, 2010)

Just wanted to give an update on how adding my package to the existing hive went in case anyone else has to do the sane in the future: I went ahead and did as Soloman suggested and removed all of the frames, smoking the crap out of the bees, and adding the new package. I placed the queen in her cage near the brood as I usually would with a replacement queen. For the first couple of days the new bees seemed to loaf around near the top entrance (I use a top entrance for my hive) in a big bee clump. However, in the past couple of days they have moved down into the hive. :applause: I opened the hive today and all of the bees seem to be hard at work, drawing out comb where empty foundation was previously and taking sugar water. I'm going to leave the queen in her cage for at least a couple more days, as I did cut out some queen cells. Hopefully I can release her this weekend and she'll be accepted.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I hardly ever kill a queen until I have her replacement in hand and even then I usually put her in a two frame nuc and bank her just in case I need a queen...


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## nervousnellie (May 25, 2011)

I am new to beekeeping (2nd year)I have two hives, one of which is strong and doing well. The second was, I thought strong going into the winter, but now is a weak hive and I'm pretty sure I'm looking at a population of mostly drones. Didn't see any brood at all, although there are frames and frames of honey. So I plan on taking Solomon's advice and install a package and a queen this weekend (when the weather is supposed to be just right). But I did want to ask, instead of putting a feeder on the top of the two hive boxes, can't I just leave the frames of honey for them to use? If so, do I put the honey frames in the 2nd hive box or can I use a third hive box on the very top? Boy, this is supposed to be fun but I'm not there yet!!!


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