Earlier in the month I talked about the newspaper method often used to unite colonies of bees. Basically to give the bees time to get used to each other they are separated by a sheet of newspaper with a few holes punched in. One colony has a queen (queen right) the other does not- opinion varies which should go on top but this time we put the colony with the queen on the bottom, then newspaper then the brood box with no queen on top of that. That colony had supers with stores so we also put those on top.
The bees are then given time to chew through the newspaper- by the time they have they are all used to each other and should get on!
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| The bees eat away the newspaper. |
Time has to be given for any brood in the top brood box to hatch and then it can be cleared and taken away leaving just one brood box with the queen and new brood.
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| The bits of newspaper are thrown out of the hive - it looks just like dust! |
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