Helping a weak hive

shake'em one time to get any field bees off-the nurse bees will hold on through a light shake, and put'em in. do a search at the top of the page for "robber screen", works good. feed'em with an inside feeder.
good luck,mike

Take any feeders you have off so the field bees don't find it, take frames with brood and all of the bees and just put them in the hive. You can use several different hives and add to your weak one. Sometimes I will smoke them as I am doing this, but I don't think that it is probably necessary.

The field bees will go home by evening and you can replace a feeder (although with your weak hive I would just take frames of honey from the strong ones) and close down the entrance.

Thanks for the information, tomorrow afternoon I'll hit my 3 strong hives and tae a frame each and consolidate those into the weak hive.

I've got all the hive enterances closed down to reduced enterances, the full hives are at half enterance, the 2new start ups are only 3/4 inch.

I've noticed some very dark bees clustered around the corner of one of my hives a ot lately. I have a pail feeder which I suspect is dribbling too much feed and running out the corner of the hive. I removed the feeders and the bees have subsequently left. I guess I need a few less holes in the feeder bucket top. I'll use a plastic enterance feeder later this week set inside a deep on top of the hive closed off so no intruders can come in the top.

After the robbing attack (My own fault as I did some open feeding) I have become very watchfull of activity around the hives.

Thanks for all the information and by default BEE-ducation

"...I need a few less holes in the feeder bucket top..."
nope, just a better seal.
good luck,mike