Brood Introduction

[Hoomin_erra]

Hey All

Here's a question i'd like an answer for. I have 4 hives, 2 massive, 1 medium, and one covering about a frame which is currently getting fed syrup.

Now, is this possible, and how best to do it? Can i take a frame of brood from each of the 2 massive hives, and introduce it into the struggling one?

All hives are queen right.

[fatshark]

You can ... but the key issue is whether there are enough bees in the weak hive to keep the introduced brood warm enough. Nights are probably warm enough where I am but you're a lot further North and you might be better off transferring brood and nurse bees.

If you're sure why the weak hive is weak ... or at least you're certain it's not due to disease ... I'd spray the frames and bees with scented water (cheap perfume or vanilla essence perhaps) then for each of the strong hives I'd remove a well populated frame, give it a gentle shake to remove flying bees, spray them with the scented water and add them to the weak colony. Make sure the queen isn't on the transferred frame! If the weak colony still looked a bit thin on bees I'd shake in a couple of extra frames of nurse bees as well ... you can harvest a lot of nurse bees from a really strong colony with little or no impact.

However, sometimes you need "tough love" ... a weak colony because the queen is hopeless isn't worth boosting. You'd be better off splitting a nuc off a strong hive.

[Jon]

I has a situation like this back in May with two colonies which had dwindled to a queen with just a couple of hundred bees.
I actually transferred one of them to an apidea at that point.
I thought that the queens might be nosemic but both colonies have now filled a brood box and the queens are laying well.
Your situation may be similar.

You need to start from the premise that in a one frame colony the bees have no real value and the only thing possibly worth saving is the queen.
Even in this warm weather I don't think you could add a frame of brood without it chilling unless the majority of the bees are less than 24 hours from emergence.
I would cage the queen and take two or three frames of sealed brood from one of the other strong colonies and place them in a nuc. Shake in as many extra bees as you can spare and ideally move the lot to a new site several miles away to stop flyers returning home. Introduce the queen in a cage as you would to any colony being started up or requeened. Once the queen is accepted and laying, take out a frame of larvae every week and swap it for a frame of sealed brood. After 3 weeks the colony should have almost filled a brood box.

I did this with a Galtee queen I got on 17th June which was introduced to 2 frames of bees and brood. It had now a full box of bees and has a super on it.

[Dark Bee]

Fatshark has given you excellent advice, read it carefully.
The question should be "why are these two hives weak" and not "can I give them frames of brood taken from other hives" ? Donating frames to a hive that is diseased or has a failing queen is futile and is a waste of brood. Establish what the problem is and you may well be able deal with it.

[Jon]

DB. The problem might just be lack of bees.
That's the way it was with my two queens.
A single frame colony cannot build up due to inability to keep a decent brood area warm.
Any colony 2 frames or less is on the road to nowhere.

If there is a bee health issue obvious things to look out for would be nosema or chalkbrood both of which knock a colony back severely.

[Dark Bee]

DB. The problem might just be lack of bees.
That's the way it was with my two queens.
A single frame colony cannot build up due to inability to keep a decent brood area warm.
Any colony 2 frames or less is on the road to nowhere.

If there is a bee health issue obvious things to look out for would be nosema or chalkbrood both of which knock a colony back severely.

Valid points Jon, You posted while I was typing.
The point I was emphasising is that one needs to establish the reason why the colony is weak, before attempting remedial action. Many fail to understand that uniting two week colonies is far from certain to give one strong colony. I'm glad the descendants of the Queen of the Laune are doing well.:)

[gavin]

Hoomin (welcome back!) will know why the colony is weak - prob just a small cast. I have several far-too-weak ones that I like to hang onto for the possibility that the queens will add useful genetics and if I remember right HR may also be concerned to keep his numbers of colonies up for that reason.

Agree totally with the points about transferring brood (even on the point of hatching) and the problems with chilling. A poly nuc might be better but it is still a serious risk. I don't do this, but I know one very experienced beekeeper who swaps positions to bolster small colonies. Is it worth trying that between your medium and your weak one? Not a very strong and a very weak one, that would cause trouble. Then you might be in a better position to shift frames of emerging brood in a week or two.

[Jon]

Gav's suggestion should also work but I would cage the queen for 24 hours to keep her safe if there is a big influx of bees from another colony.