[Beorn]

I have two hives. One is booming and I plan on splitting at the end of the month. The other is just kind of putting along. I did a quick inspection about 3 weeks ago and saw brood and eggs, no queen.

If I take a frame of eggs and brood from the full hive and put it in the other one, what's to keep those bees from killing their new roommates?

It's going to be about 80 here tomorrow and I'm looking forward to really getting in and doing full inspections.

 

[Naturegoods]

Do it when the field bees are mostly out working. I don’t believe nurse bees will fight. You could simply thump that frame one time on the top edge of the strong hive and most of the bees will fall back into the hive and you insert the frame with very few bees on it. Smoke before thumping as a rule.
Come to think it is probably best to move with no bees to assure that you do not accidently move the queen.

 

[AstroBee]

The small hive had eggs, so what you're trying to do is to boost populations using your booming hive, and not force them to use more resources to rear bees, right? If so, I'd grab a frame or two of sealed brood. Select frames with the least amount of eggs and open brood as possible. That way you don't task the small hive with caring for more larvae and get a quick boost in population. Sometimes this is all that is needed. When a colony drops below critical mass they get off to a very slow start. This is one of the few times when a bee brush can be helpful. I like to brush off all the bees before adding to the small hive.

 

[Fuzzy]

I would mostly have to agree with AstroBee. Give em a frame of completely sealed brood. It will be hatching in a few days and will be an instant supply of nurse bees for the hive to build with. Don't worry about any bees still hanging on the frame. They will get along just fine.

 

[RayMarler]

Shake in a frame of nurse bees with that frame of sealed brood, and put on a feeder if the hive's field force is low, which it sounds like it probably is. If the pollen stores are down, then add a frame of pollen from the stronger hive as well. Nurse bees and brood food will give them a real kick, unless you've a queen that's getting slow.

 

[Steve10]

My opinion, little too early to be breaking into the brood chamber and removing brood in our area. I wouldn't handicap my stronger hive by robbing brood. Instead, if your poorer hive has eggs and brood and the bees are bringing back pollen - feed,feed, feed - since we don't have a nectar flow yet! A little extra warmth would help too. Our forecast is for some more wet, cool weather. Some black tar paper stapled to the box may help them keep their 93F brood temp easier. If the poorer hive's queen isn't working well, plan to re-queen if they haven't already decided to supersede her. Work the poorer hive like a nuc.

 

[StevenG]

Yes, pay attention to Steve10, and your weather. Don't be impatient, as your area is bound to be a few weeks behind us here much further south.