Branman
05-23-2005, 12:32 PM
Can you buy a package of bees, set them inside an empty deep on top of an established hive, wait a few days and introduce them to the hive? Will the smells be recognized w/o violence? I was thinking about possible uses for strengthening a hive for a short flow like ours in the south, or for getting hives strong for early pollination contracts like almonds.
peggjam
05-23-2005, 01:52 PM
I think you'd have a mess of very angry bees from the hive. Why not just combine using the newspaper metheod? It's proven to work, and wouldn't take any longer to do.
peggjam
Michael Bush
05-23-2005, 02:38 PM
Try this. Remove the queen from a package. Wait an hour or two, dump them on the ground in front of the hive you want to boost. I bet virtually all of them move into the nearest queenright hive.