[BeePappy]

Photos from a swarm captured nearly 4 weeks ago. Rather small, less than 2 lbs at that time. Still only occupy 5 frames in a 10 frame Lang. Tempted to put them in a Nuc so they don't have so
much space to defend. ****roaches up under the outer cover when I pull it. I notice that the queen was slow to get laying, and now that she is, it is not what I would consider a substantial amount
of eggs or open brood at this point. I found 2 Cups, which appear to not have any egg or larva, hard for me to see. And found one Queen cell on the face of a frame, sealed.
The photos show brood pattern, and number.

Does this mean they intend to replace the Queen with a newer more prolific model?

I have another hive that is a weak hive, perhaps queen less even (but a lot of bees) that I could combine with this one, would that be a good idea or would it disrupt the process of queen replacement?



http://s1134.photobucket.com/user/maxgrafixx/library/QUe Bees Inspection 6-28

 

[wcubed]

If your probably queenless is truely queenless, it shouldn't hurt to combine - Carefully.
Walt

 

[Sovek]

If you combine just make sure you dont accidently give it another queen, but yeah, at this point its probably a good idea to combine since you have some long and harsh winters.

 

[BeePappy]

Thank you for the responses. We prefer the newspaper combine as we've had good luck with that before.
The winters here are usually long and cold. Last year EXTREMELY long, harsh, and very cold. Brutal.