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So I check on my 2 hives yesterday. Again I am still having problems. They both are caught swarms and I am a first year rookie.
Hive 1:
No queen ended up with laying workers. Did a shake out and that seemed to do the trick. I bought a queen, they released her and swarmed (because of ants) 4-5 days later. I caught them back. 8 days later (Thursday) I checked on them and found a capped queen cell. Yesterday still no sign of eggs or brood. Bees covering the capped queen cell and very protective of it.
Hive 2:
This swarm was caught 2 weeks ago yesterday. Very small in numbers. They have drawn some comb and have put pollen and nectar in but no signs of eggs or brood.
I cannot find the queen in either one. I was thinking of combining the two hives and hoping for the best with the queen cell in in hive one. What do you think? If I do combine can I just move them over or will they fight? Newspaper combine? I have no other resources and I do not want to get into a laying worker situation.
Thanks for the help.
Hive 1:
No queen ended up with laying workers. Did a shake out and that seemed to do the trick. I bought a queen, they released her and swarmed (because of ants) 4-5 days later. I caught them back. 8 days later (Thursday) I checked on them and found a capped queen cell. Yesterday still no sign of eggs or brood. Bees covering the capped queen cell and very protective of it.
Hive 2:
This swarm was caught 2 weeks ago yesterday. Very small in numbers. They have drawn some comb and have put pollen and nectar in but no signs of eggs or brood.
I cannot find the queen in either one. I was thinking of combining the two hives and hoping for the best with the queen cell in in hive one. What do you think? If I do combine can I just move them over or will they fight? Newspaper combine? I have no other resources and I do not want to get into a laying worker situation.
Thanks for the help.