[Pat H]

About 2 weeks ago 1 of my hives swarmed onto a nearby tree. I captured the swarm into a 6 bar mini hive that I left near the tree. After a week I built another TBH and placed it near my other hives which is about 100 ft from where the mini hive has been. One early morning I decided to transfer the mini hive to the new hive. After completing the transfer I noticed a cluster of bees going back to the area where the mini hive was. I would say half stayed in the new hive and the others went back to where the mini hive was. Over the last 5 days I have been moving the mini have closer and closer to the new hive.
My question is if I can still combine the bees from the mini hive and the new hive since they have been separated for about a week. My concern is they will fight and kill each other.

 

[Saltybee]

With no queen it should be fine. You can shake the out in front and remove the 2nd hive. Too small to add a frame of brood and make a queen in that 2nd ?

 

[Pat H]

With no queen it should be fine. You can shake the out in front and remove the 2nd hive. Too small to add a frame of brood and make a queen in that 2nd ?

I do believe their is a queen. When i originally moved the swarm to the new hive, i also moved all but one bar into new hive. I noticed eggs in the comb. I do have another hive that is without a queen. I could put the remaining bees from the mini into that hive since it has no queen. What do you think?

 

[Saltybee]

Not a TBH guy, only used them my first year, so hopefully a TBH er will pitch in on how to do that. Lang would just be a newspaper combine. If the other hive as gone Laying Workers it gets harder and not recommended.
I never like adding a small hive to a larger but it is done all the time, so maybe it is just me. I tend to shake out a frame or two of the larger and wait for a day or 2 and add more.
Really, when placed side by side the queenless will drift over to the queenright in a week or so anyway all by themselves most of the time. They will do it in nucs when both are with queens if one is not very good. One is full of bees and the other becomes empty.

 

[Harley Craig]

I combined bees ina TBH last yr my follower board was tight to the side walls but had a 1/2 in gap under so bees could get to the back half to patrol. I stuffed the gap fairly tight with grassand put the other bees behind it, in less than two days they had pulled all of the grass out and I never noticed any fighting I then opened them back up and moved the brood combs from the one I.to the brood nest of the other so I didn't end up with two broodnest seperated by honey. That one time was my only experience with this so don't count it as gospel working all of the time I may have just gotten lucky

 

[Marysia2]

Harley, did both groups of bees have queens? How did you decide which group to add to which hive? This sounds like a good method to combine tbh bees, but I've also read you can use a wet newspaper to separate them and they'll eat through it in a few days. By the time they do, everyone is best buddies. That's the theory, anyway.