Uniting Bees

[Rosemary]

We have a queenless colony, no queen since June, but no drone layers. We want to unite them with a queen right colony. Will this work? Will the queen be killed

[SDM]

No particular reason why it wouldn't work, but is it worth trying ? Those bees can't have long to live now.

[Jon]

First step, assuming you have not done this already, is to check for queenlessness by inserting a frame of eggs/small larvae to see if they draw queen cells on it. Queen cells drawn means you have a colony which has no queen.
If you have a non laying queen in the colony it may well kill the laying queen during the unite.

[Adam]

As Jopn writes - I would be surprised that a colony would not have laying workers if they have been queenless since June.

[SDM]

First step, assuming you have not done this already, is to check for queenlessness by inserting a frame of eggs/small larvae to see if they draw queen cells on it. Queen cells drawn means you have a colony which has no queen.
.

Is that 100% the case ? I just wondered whether they could take the opertunity to supercede their non laying queen from a test frame.

[Jon]

Is that 100% the case ? I just wondered whether they could take the opertunity to supercede their non laying queen from a test frame.

I have never heard of that happening.

[Calluna4u]

We have a queenless colony, no queen since June, but no drone layers. We want to unite them with a queen right colony. Will this work? Will the queen be killed

I agree with SDM. The bees that are left will now be very old and add little of benefit to your queenright colony unless it is very small and in real need of a short term boost to get some extra brood raised before winter. The risk of damage to the good colony is greater than the benefits from uniting (there may well be a small and very old unmated VQ still in there, hence no laying workers, although at this age it would be unusual for her not to have turned drone layer by now). If it were mine I would probably shake it out and store the gear away to make a split next spring..OR....if the queenright hive is strong AND there are still a lot of bees in the apparently queenless one....take two bars of brood from the good hive and place them together in the queenless one. Check a few days later to see if cells are being built. If so acquire a mated laying queen, kill the cells (every last one of them) and introduce the new queen. Feed continuously. Its a higher risk strategy but might save the colony. If you do raid the good one for brood remember to trickle feed it to stimulate the queen into laying so the brood you took gets replaced. At this time of year they otherwise might not do so.

[busybeephilip]

Here's another brilliant myth for jon's collection

Bee Guardian - varroa mites remover as sold on fleabay only £79 squid, uses pizoelectric effect as a power supply (but surely that needs the continuous application of variable pressure ?), from the picture it looks like a tub of nuts and bolts for bits of old electronic components

[gavin]

If it really does generate an electric shock to remove mites, it will probably rile the bees something awful too. Certainly colonies forced to run past wires for venom collection (under a clingfilm sheet) are reputedly somewhat on the defensive!

[busybeephilip]

I think he is thating the idea from those mouse/cat/dog/insect repellent devices that generate a frequency that annoys the animal so much that it wont want to stay, he quotes mosquito repellers but thses devices are usually plugged in and use enough power to geneate a radio signal. The power source quoted is pizoelectric ie what you would find in a cig lighter, they need to be pressed quiet a bit to produce the energy which is only a short burst so cant see how the physics works.

I'm sure there has been work done on frequency repellers for varroa but it would likely annoy the bees too. Would be great if it worked but I am not convinced that this would ever work as described by the person who made it. I would also imagine that if it did work there would be a worldwide patent to protect it. There is a german patent that has a device that generates 20-80 Khz at 260dB in 2014 and placed inside a frame within the hive to be used for long periods. It could be easy enough to build a device that produces this frequency.