Omlet Beehaus - Introducing a New Queen to the Colony; How to Unite Two Colonies

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Introducing a new queen to the colony
You may decide to introduce a bought queen or a queen from another
hive rather than waiting for the newly formed nucleus colony to raise a
new queen.
You may also need to re-queen a colony in which the queen was
accidentally killed, isn’t laying properly, or in a colony where the bees
are bad tempered. Introducing a new queen is not always successful as
the bees sometimes do not accept her. The keys to successful queen
introduction are:
 •Goodnectarow(realorsimulatedbyfeeding)
 •Placingthequeeninthebroodnest,wheretherearemostly
young bees
 •Using a queen cage to allow the bees time to get acquainted with
their new queen.
 •Beingsurethecolonyisqueenless
It’s best to use a queen cage, like the one pictured. The queen is held in a
space separated from the bees by a small piece of fondant (sugar paste).
Once placed in the colony, the bees can see and touch the new queen
picking up pheromones from her that are passed around the hive. By the
time the fondant has been eaten and the queen released she has been
accepted by the colony.
If you don’t have a queen cage you can use a matchbox with holes pierced
through it. The bees will take a while to eat through the cardboard and
release the queen.
The queen safely held in the cage.
The cage fits neatly so you don’t
have to move frames.
Place the queen in between
brood frames.
Once in place close up the hive
and wait to see if the bees accept
the queen.
A piece of fondant is placed in the
end of the cage.
An empty queen marking cage.
The Beehaus with the divider board in place and a colony on either side.
Step 1 - Check that there is only one queen. The safest way to unite two
colonies is to make sure only one has a queen. If both colonies have a
queen you should choose the the queen that is weakest and remove her.
If both queens are young and healthy then you could cage one and use
her in a different colony or make up a nucleus to keep her in.
Step 2 - To unite the colonies you will need a piece of newspaper. First,
smoke both colonies and wait about 3 minutes for the smoke to take its
full effect. The best time to unite the colonies is in the evening when
the bees have stopped flying. You should open the stronger colony and
remove middle section of the divider board.
Step 3 - Place a piece of newspaper in the divider board – thereby making
a barrier. Now push the frames so that they are up against the barrier.
Step 4 - The bees will nibble away at the paper.
You should leaves the bees for a week and hopefully when you return the
bees will have integrated. After a further 30 days you can then close the
rear entrance as the flying bees from that colony will have died off and
the new bees won’t yet have habituated themselves to it.
Replace the central section of the
divider board with newspaper.
Push the brood frames up hard
against the divider board.
If you have two colonies of bees you might need to unite them together
to make a larger, stronger colony. Some reasons for uniting 2 colonies
are:
1. To recombine two colonies created when they were artificially
swarmed.
2. To combine two small colonies into one larger colony
3. To unite a colony with a queen to one that is queenless or has a queen
that is not laying properly.
4. To add a swarm to a full colony
5. To reduce the number of colonies taken into winter
6. To create a strong foraging force for a particular flow of nectar
Method
The basic principle of uniting two colonies is to allow the bees to mix
slowly using a temporary barrier between them. The Beehaus divider
board has a removable section that you can remove and replace with
newspaper. The bees on both sides will gradually nibble the paper away
and in doing so will slowly pass the new queen’s scent around.
What two colonies will look like in your Beehaus
How to unite two colonies
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