MR G JOHNSTON wrote:
 
> After bringing colonies back from their over-wintering site, I found
> that only two out of six had survived.
> 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).
 
> 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.
>
This happens now and then for me too. Early in spring the bees from a
queenless colony that are robbed out join the robbers back to the
queenright
hive.
 
--
Regards
 
P-O Gustafsson, Sweden
[log in to unmask]    http://www.kuai.se/~beeman/