[vickiesbees]

Just wanted to know what I should do about a hive that has bees hanging off the bottom board and filling up the face of the hive in the evening when everyone is home. It looks like all the frames have bees, bees and more bees. I have a hive that is not going to survive and I was thinking of puting that hive body one the hive that is overflowing with bees. Now the poor hive does have a few bees in it. Please help me.

 

[Iddee]

Go ahead and combine them. Lay a sheet of newspaper between the boxes and cut 2 slits about 4 to 6 inches long in the paper. They will remove the paper in a few days and join without much fighting.

You can then make a split in the spring and have 2 hives again.

 

[beehandler]

another option is to switch the hives around.......the field force from the strong hive will still come back to the same place,so that will give the weak hive a boost in numbers.and lighten the congested hive a bit.

 

[barry42001]

in the stronger colony, perhaps consider adding a super to provide the bees with more space to spread out into, will help, eliminate all the clustering outside, won't eliminate it entirely, but will help, besides with all those ladies looking for something to do, would you not want them to be drawing comb, storing honey, or starting swarm cells due to brood chamber congestion, and being honey bound in the brood chambers.
Barry

 

[vickiesbees]

Thanks everyone I think I will combine the two hives, because the one hive is almost empty and the other is overflowing.