How To Combine Two Bee Colonies Into One

I like your videos. Streamline and informative. Thanks

Just wondering what happens if you don’t remove either of the queens?

great thanks Jason

What happens to the foragers from the weak hive?

My ideal bee hive is the two bottom boxes for brood then three boxes for framed honey and then two supers for comb honey

Hey Jason the my name is FILIP Beekeeper for five years I have a weak colony with a good queen but not too much honey on winter so I have helped with honey frames . Now is about 3 frames of brood , and I have a not so weak colony with the drone Laing queen so I want to combine those two but the one which has a bad queen is Laying Drone eggs what’s going on the bad one has few uncapped queen cells I wander if those cells have a good eggs to replace the queen from her own eggs? Or I should go ahead and combine them? Thank you.

So how do you capture all the bees from the hive that was going on top? There must be many bees out foraging that weren't in the boxes when you move them across.

Very useful information.I too a beekeeper from India.Hope you would sopport my utube videos Thanks

A virgin queen has a VERY limited time to mate. If she doesn't inside this window (It's something like 2 weeks), she's screwed, err, not screwed. She will not bee able to mate (nor want to). She'll, at best, become a drone laying queen.

Y don't cut the paper , but y youse news paper 📰 , it's not Soo hard like coking paper and bees cutting himself to find the air , and in this process she realizes it,s no queen in family , and accepted the only queen in the box

I have 2 hives that were captured this past spring ( both were small swarms). Both have 1 deep brood box and appear to have lots and lots of bees; however, one doesn’t seem to have any brood at all, the other has only a small cluster of brood ( size of big softball). Have been feeding and both have lots of frames of capped honey. Admitting, I didn’t look for a queen in either as I was fighting daylight. If I can’t find a queen, should I combine these together? Or combine with 2 separate colonies that have queens?

New subscriber, DirtRooster sent me.

Hi Jason. Thank you for this informative video. I'v been doing this a bit differently, and would like you to comment on it, what you think. I'v been using 2 weak colonies in one chamber each, and stock them one on top of the other, there is a queen excluder in between and news paper. I don't poke any holes in paper. And when spring comes, some of them combined into 1 colony with 1 queen, others will keep two of those queen til mid Spring. Let me know what you think about it. Thank you

Why do you not want eggs or larvae in the upper box?

I am new to your channel I appreciate the work that you do and the videos you share I am a subscriber from dirt rooster and he said you needed some help since somebody stole your account. I will certainly help out as much as I possibly can.

Wow Ladybird 🐞...
You won that Circuit Race ! 😎 Howdy JC too. 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Hi Jason, I've read that a virgin can't mate after around 17 days. Can't remember the exact number of days. So an overwinter virgin will never mate.

Nice vidio ,always success and thank you for sharing

Spray vinegar on weak hive and top of strong hive to conceal their smell too. Stops infighting even more

Love your videos Jason...can you maybe do a video on breaking double deep boxes down to single deep for upcoming winter. :)

Jason, I have a stronger hive that is queenless. I want to combine with a smaller, queenright hive. Can I still put the smaller hive (with the queen) on top?

What if there's honey stores in the top box above the brood chamber? I have a single hive that's weak but my strongest hive has a bottom box full of bees and the top box is full of honey. What am I supposed to do with all the honey?

I planted a 50 ft by 4 foot patch of asters and goldenrod this spring for the bees. The New England Asters are just crazy with bees. I'm going to plant more this spring. The other asters were okay but not anywhere as popular.

Sure glad to see ladybug enjoying the fall weather. Nice pup there.
Two points I differ with you. First doing a paper combine with a strong hive, mine will chew through the paper overnight so after 12 hours there is a big wad of fine paper shreds sitting outside the hive entrance. I didn't even make any slits in the newspaper. I separated the hive boxes and all the newspaper was gone. Now I use 2 sheets if the hives are strong.
Second point is that the bees memory is longer than 5 days for sure. I moved a hive 4 miles away and brought it back 5 days later and the foragers were still going to their old home. Maybe 10 days to 2 weeks would suffice since most of the foragers would be dead by then.

Just my observations here in MN.

Great info, I would wait a week or so until I start to see tiny pieces of paper at the entrance or on the ground in front of the hive as bees will chew out the paper and will start carrying pieces of the newspaper out of the hive and dropping them to the ground. At that point you will know that any skirmishes between bees are long done and over.

He lost Queens when he done his

Who can you order Queens from this time of year

Good information Jason ,always enjoy your talk ,very informative, I have a question, I live in northern British Columbia Canada ,we have had some night frost already, days are cooling off ,temperatures between highs of 5 to 9 or 10 this last week,I went to inspect a ladys hive yesterday, she is in Mexico for chemotherapy and her husband didnt know what to do ,she only has one hive,I inspected it and looks queen less ,no eggs and no brood ,you were saying I think that in order to resolve that at this late you could get a mated queen,I'm just wondering isnt it to late for a queen to get enough fat bodied bees to look after the hive for the long winter months ahead, there are no flowers left in our neck of the woods and 6 to 6 months of winter to go through, any suggestions would be welcome, I hate to see her bees just die off .

I use a double-screen (Snelgtove) board to merge colonies. Insert it between the two colonies, then remove after a couple of days.

I done this last week I had a week colony with a few fresh eggs but could not find the queen so I combined anyway with newspaper. I looked today i have one queen but this was a big risk. Would you have waited or went ahead? Thanks JC !

Brian from Castle Hives rocks! Great video! 🍻

I love fall, but it makes me a bit melancholy knowing my beekeeper videos will be slowing down--I love them. Can't keep bees myself but find them endlessly fascinating, and enjoy all the different styles and methods of the keepers themselves. Had to laugh at Ladybug zooming--my silly Chihuahua takes a mood and does the same thing, but the size difference is hilarious! Anyway, good video, Jason, thank you!

💕👌👍

glad you showed up on my homepage don't understand how I got unsubscribe

Thanks so much for the shout out Jason, I really appreciate it. Enjoyed the video. This is definitely the time of year to combine and get the girls set for the winter. . And, hahaha, look at Ladybug looking at you towards the end.

I dust both colonies with icing sugar. Keeps the occupied cleaning up, before they chew through the news paper and allows the hive smells time to mingle, avoiding fighting.

Another great info video. My guess it that you snuck out those rolls of wax paper from your wife's kitchen, so you are best to get them back before she gets upset..lol Have a good one. Tim

After being trapped up top for a few days wouldn't they reorient anyway

Great video Jason. I need some of what ladybug had for breakfast! 😂

I might be in a combining situation, have you seen a colony queenless that when you observe them everything seems just fine. Inspection yesterday no eggs, larva. Just some emerging Brood. But bees are calm fanning at entrance ,bringing in pollen very strong hive guard bees on landing everything seems normal.

Omg Jason doesn't sleep 😃 the golden rod is just starting to turn yellow

Note combining or requeening can fail and you could end up losing both. Depending on the situation at this time of year it can be better to just shake them out, let the bees find new homes and give the boxes to another hive. Joining can work no doubt but is not without risk. If one is a drone layer its especially risky since you cant find the laying workers.

I had my hive nocked over 2 days ago put it back together and heard the queen piping and the workers are bringing pollen in once again

Thanks Jason, I’m heading out this morning to figure out if I’m gonna combine any of my weaker hives before winter. Timely information! 😉

Awesome mate thanks. I was just about to ask about having an entrance with the top hive when doing this🍺🍺

Great information thanks for sharing I appreciate it.

I like your farm i like bee kipping

Looks like Ladybug had a double expresso this morning!

Another awesome video Jason! Thank you!