Hi everyone.
 
After bringing colonies back from their over-wintering site, I found
that only two out of six had survived. The winter was very harsh this
year here in Grahamstown and when combined with many fires which
obliterated most of the forage led to the severe weakening of
colonies.
Of those two colonies that survived, one was very weak with no stored
food or brood whilst the
other was weak but had multiple eggs in cells (indicative of laying
workers and a queenless colony down here in the Cape - S.Africa).
 
These two colonies were placed side by side (About 1 metre apart) and
fed. What seemed to
happen was that they tended to rob each other a bit and whilst
observing this, the queenless colony started to abscond. But then
instead of flying off and forming a ball, they flew quite orderdly
into the second (very weak) colony. There was no defensive behaviour
and the colonies merged without any fighting. Now they are a strong
and very active colony.
 
Is this a common occurance whereby two weak colonies willfully join
each other to form a single thriving unit?
 
The pheromonal communications involved in this sort of merger must be
mind-blowing.
 
Thanks alot
Cheers
 
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