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Combing Hives

813 views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  peggjam 
#1 ·
This is the deal. I got a swarms this spring and and it is doing just okay. I have my hive from last year and though it is not going great it is okay. I want to combine the swarm hive into my older hive. They both have queens. What is the best way to do this?

I also have a lot of frames that seem to have only capped honey (albeit, probably sugar syrup) and are completely filled with pollen. Can I extract the honey to make room for more brood rearing? Can I also extract some of the pollen in an extractor and save it. I was thinking of feeding them the extracted honey in fall after the season has ended.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Tony
 
#2 ·
You can combine them using newspaper, one or two layers on top of the bottom hive, and then place the other hive on top of the newspaper. You have two choices in dealing with the queens, remove the poorer of the two, or let them fight it out. You won't get very much pollen out of the frames, the stuffs like glue. If you are going to feed it back to them anyway(the honey) why not just pull the frames and store in your freezer, and then put them back on the hive in the fall? Saves a ton of extra work.
 
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