Combining small swarms

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beemanjack
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2010 4:49 pm

Combining small swarms

Post by beemanjack »

Today, I combined two swarms that I recently collected. One is rather large but the other is really small. The small one came first -about a month ago - and I put it in a hive body. The large swarm came day before yesterday and the only box I had left was a medium. They are now combined with the hive body on the bottom and the medium on the top. Both boxes still have about 6-7 frames needing to be pulled. Here is my question. Should I force all the bees into the hive body and remove the medium box until 7-8 frames are completely pulled (as you would do a package), or, with heavy feeding, is it likely will they manage to pull the wax in both boxes?
Jacobs
Guard bee
Posts: 1888
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 12:36 pm
Location: Greensboro, NC

Re: Combining small swarms

Post by Jacobs »

I would force them into one box and not add until it is mostly drawn. Hopefully it will limit chimneying, limit the space the bees need to protect from SHB, and give them a "we need more space(comb)" stimulus.
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