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 +-----------------------------------+ | I walked in through the open door | | couldn't believe what I saw | | They were all around me | | Epeleptics to a banjo melody. | | GAVIN JOHNSTON | | [log in to unmask] | +-----------------------------------+