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New Bees Moved to other hive

2K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  Gypsi 
#1 ·
Saturday April 14 I installed two new hives that sit within five feet of one another. I went out daily to fill their top hive feeders. On the third day I noticed that one hive looked a lot weaker than the other. I opened the hives to check and discovered most of the bees had moved into one hive. Both queens were released, with each in their respective hive. One colony is very small and the other is huge. I have been keeping bees seven years and this has never happened.

Some "very seasoned" beekeepers have told me to go out tomorrow in mid afternoon and switch the hives. Place the strong hive where the weak hive is currently sitting. They are saying that the foragers from the strong hive will return and enter the weak hive because it is sitting where their hive used to be. They will not fight and will be allowed in because they are carrying food.

Has anyone else experienced this? And, how did you resolve the issue?
 
#2 ·
first make sure the queen is still alive in the smaller hive, she may have died and the bees went to the other queen, I had a similar experience when trying to split a hive, if the queen is still alive I would wait and see what happens, if you start moving hives around you may cause more issues than solve, its early in the season for the new queen to build up the hive, are you feeding them sugar water? reduce the entrance to about an inch so the smaller hive can defend against robbers and see if the new queen starts laying eggs...
 
#3 ·
Saturday April 14 I installed two new hives that sit within five feet of one another. I went out daily to fill their top hive feeders. On the third day I noticed that one hive looked a lot weaker than the other. I opened the hives to check and discovered most of the bees had moved into one hive. Both queens were released, with each in their respective hive. One colony is very small and the other is huge. I have been keeping bees seven years and this has never happened.

Some "very seasoned" beekeepers have told me to go out tomorrow in mid afternoon and switch the hives. Place the strong hive where the weak hive is currently sitting. They are saying that the foragers from the strong hive will return and enter the weak hive because it is sitting where their hive used to be. They will not fight and will be allowed in because they are carrying food.

Has anyone else experienced this? And, how did you resolve the issue?
 
#4 ·
Hello, I am only in my second year and here is my similar story. I had my first hive set up last spring and it grew in great numbers, had purchased my second package for pickup last weekend, but my first hive had a large swarm and I was fortunate enough to capture it. I used the hive I had just built for my second package to lock the swarm in for a few days, anyway I set up another hive right beside this one and picked up my package as planned and released, did my one week check to ensure they had released the queen and found maybe 50 bees total inside with the unreleased queen. is it possible the others joined the much stronger swarmed hive?
 
#5 ·
Bees do as they please unfortunately. Cheryle, I've done the switch box thing, and it does equal out populations. Make sure both are queen right. Trex, I'm not sure your bees moved to the other hive, they may have absconded. If you have 2 queens in one box, I'd split that up
 
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