adding brood from another yard?

[papar]

Hi everyone!

I moved a couple hives that were struggling a bit to a yard that is close to home. The farm in question just had a couple acres of buckwheat bloom and a good sized pumkin patch do the same. Both of these hives were found to be queenless a couple weeks ago, one had made several supersedure cells so I took one out and added it to the other hive. As it turns out, neither hive has the presence of an active queen so I have ordered queens and should be recieving them in a day or two.
Here are my questions: Both hives have only built into the bottom deep, nothing in the tops yet and just about all the capped brood has hatched out. I could combine the hives and add 1 new queen, or I could keep them seperate adding a queen to each and after they start laying really well, then combine? I am also not sure if I need to add frames of brood? My other yards are about 1 hours drive. What is the best way to transport those frames of brood safely?
Any suggestions? Golden rod is probabley about 3 weeks away.

Ron

[tecumseh]

in regards to moving brood... extremes in temperature is what you wish to avoid. in especially hot weather you might wish to cover the brood in a wet towel to provide a bit more humidity in what ever box you might transport frames of brood. in cooler weather a hot water bottle or sandwich bag with warm water should be added to the box to provide warmth.

at this time of the season I do not find it unusual to discover that a hive is queenless...I also don't find it unusual that the same hive is quite likely to have a young virgin or newly mated queen already on board. which is to suggest that I have often done as you describe only to discover that when I arrived two weeks later and holding my newly purchased mated queen in hand only to discover a nice patter of young larvae and eggs in the box I just knew was queenless.

at somepoint you begin to recognize the difference between hives that are simply between queens and those that are hopelessly queenless.

[papar]

might be a dumb question but do you allow the bees to remain on the frames when you transport them?

[tecumseh]

normally I shake or brush off the clinging bees and try to transfer only brood.... this is 'typically' brood that is sealed and fairly close to emerging since 'my purpose' is to boost weak hives that have fairly limited population.

[papar]

Went in yesterday to get ready for queens to arrive and did find one hive had a queen hatch and start laying. She is only on one frame but she is there. Thinking about keeping her down in the bottom box with a queen excluder then putting two honey supers above with another deep with drawn comb under another excluder and put a new queen up there. When she fills that deep, I will pinch the original then combine. Thinking about trying this method with a couple others I want to re-queen. What do you all think??

[tecumseh]

for myself the idea of starting a replacement queen above while the old one below is still laying can be a bit hit or miss.... ie as you have described the process, this just don't work for me. I have always suspect that the bees, being queenright, don't accept the new queen quite as readily as they might when the unit is queenless.

it might?? make for a better acceptance rate to totally divide the unit (entrances top and bottom pointed in opposite direction) via a cloak board or double screen or newspaper, introduce the new queen above and get her laying and then reunite the two units once the new queen has a good pattern laid down.

I am speculating here for certain papar so if anyone has some experience in establishing what is essentially double queen hives please share what you know.

[papar]

Well. The reason I'm considering this is because 1 or the 2 hives in question is pretty weak.It only has about 7/8 frames of bees. Perhaps I should just combine at this time but I'm hoping to get them built up enough on the fall flow to get them through the winter. The other issue is that they are starting to get robbed out. With all brood hatched out of both hives(in the last week)this could be a lost cause. What are your thoughts??

[tecumseh]

the season is gettin' pretty far along at your location so if both or either colony is weak I would likely be thinking about combining. when robbing becomes relevent in regards to season I am even more inclined to combine.

as a side note.... a couple of falls ago I had a small number (I believe 3) very weak hives that I decided I needed to combine with hives that were only slightly more robust. I did a paper combine and the two population nicely merged with the weak hive gettin' enough population so that I didn't need to worry about robbers or wax moth. one particular item I did not notice when I did the combine was the slightly more robust hives had a nice plug of capped honey at the top of their box. so when I came back to check on these combined hives (likely about 2 weeks later), upon dissassemble of the first hive I realized that I had a queen laying in the top box and upon digging deeper I had a queen laying in the bottom box also. evidently the capped honey had kept the laying queens seperated. I then seperated the two units, redistributed the feed resources and the seperated colonies made the winter with little problem (I do feed during the winter months).

[wayacoyote]

at somepoint you begin to recognize the difference between hives that are simply between queens and those that are hopelessly queenless.

Like the former sitting nice and quiet on the comb despite the lack of brood, while the latter chasing you out of the yard and down the road just because you opened the door to the truck while in their yard.

WayaCoyote