> Any thoughts appreciated.

Since nobody else picked this up, I will. I am sure these types of things happen often enough. Probably, they either go unnoticed or we don't like to talk about them. 

Back in the 1970s I worked at a bee supply store and we would get a lot of calls to pick up swarms. Usually I would hive them separately but one time I decided to just dump a swarm from the catch box into a hive that already had bees in it. Turns out, the first swarm was golden bees and the second was some kind of Carniolan type of dark bees.

I lifted the lid and unceremoniously poured them in. The next day I found all of the dark bees dead in front of the hive. Probably if I had used newspaper, or soaked them with syrup, it would have worked. But I rushed it and that's what happened. 

I too swap the positions of strong and weak hives in spring, and have not noticed any fighting. If I did, I would be disappointed but not necessarily surprised. So many things will work if conditions are favorable and fail at other times. Experience is the best teacher, but the most expensive one.

PLB

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