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I have two weak hives that made it through the winter but just barely have any brood or anything. What can I do to strengthen them up? One has a two year old queen and the other queen is from the fall. Would it be a good idea to combine them?

Are these your only hives or do you have some stronger ones? I have several weak hives that I have been boosting with brood frames from a strong hive. The queens in the weak hives were laying but it looked like there were less than critical numbers of bees to allow the hives to build up without help. From the looks of 2 of the hives, I am going to need to add more frames.

If these are your only hives, selecting the best queen and combining may be your best shot at survival (unless you have a friend with some strong hives who is willing to give/sell you frames of brood).

Does anyone else have ideas/suggestions? I'd like to hear more options myself.

I suppose it depends on your goals for the year.
what would you estimate the number of bees to be? What is the cluster size?
It seems highly unlikely that you will be able to make any honey this year, so I would think your goal would be to build them up to full strength and have strong hives for next year.
It is unlikely that the hives will die out now that sprng is here.
I would verify that your queen is laying eggs. I would also want to see the queen!
These hives are basically useless for 2010 so enjoy them for what they are.

Kurt

they seem to be filling about the whole hive body, but there is just minimal amounts of brood being drawn out. normally this time of year i already have supers on. I just wonder what went wrong. was it just the really cold winter?

if i dont combine them, what should i do to get them strong enough for winter?

Sounds like a problem with the queen. I would probably start with her!

I think 90% of the hives I have looked at this spring are 2 to 3 weeks behind what was normal for last year. Feb and part of March was so cold that they didn't build up much.

I checked his hives today. The problem stems from them coming out of winter on 2 to 3 frames. When the pollen started to come in, the bees filled the frames on each side of those 2 or 3 with pollen, thus making a "wall outside each brood area. Both queens were laying well in the small space they had to use. We rearranged the frames by putting emptys in between the full ones. I think a week from now he will have numerous frames of brood in both hives.

i checked the hives on Thursday and the populations were already up. the queens had laid in more of the frames. we will see what things look like once all the new eggs hatch, but its looking good.