Thanks Larry

I look up plants that people mention here to learn about them & see if  
they could be found here.  My copy of 'Plants for Beekeeping in Canada  
and Northern USA' says eranthis hyemalis(eranthis d'hiver) is an  
excellent source of early pollen.

Maybe your 2 lost hives were weaker than the others.  I count the  
seams of bees at packing time when I treat with oxalic drizzle in  
early December.  I have found that if there are less than 5 seams with  
bees clustered, they do not make it through our 'normal' (whatever  
that is) winter.  I posed the question here on Bee-L about combining  
these weak hives that late in the year and got an answer from Alan  
Dick formally of this list.

In late Nov early Dec when doing my oxalic acid treatment, I record  
the number of seams of bees on which I drizzle oxalic.  I have found  
that if there are 4 seams of clustered bees or less, they do not  
survive our winter.  Now if I was smarter I would have combined much  
earlier.
Should I:

1- Place one hive brood box directly on top of the other after the  
bees have clustered (both are queen right)

2- As in 1 with a queen excluder between the 2 hives

  3- Use the newspaper method before they cluster (several warmer days  
predicted later this week -5C tonight, +10C Thurs and Fri)

4- Place each weak hive on top of a stronger hive to take advantage of  
the heat (no connection between the hives)

5- Kiss the weaker hives goodbye

6- Better ideas?

I do #1 on your list.  Place the heavier one on top and rotate the  
boxes so the clusters are lined up above and  below one another.  If  
the bees are torpid when combined and no great disturbance is made,  
there should be no fighting, and the two clusters should unite over  
time when it warms up.  You should be able to do this even in cold  
weather as long as you are deft, don’t blunder around or drop boxes  
and bees.


Bob Darrell
Caledon Ontario
Canada
44N80W
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