In article <[log in to unmask]>, Paul Nicholson
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>Does anyone have any ideas how I can help this small hive build it's
>population?
>
>Paul
 
Hello Paul,
 
This might be a practice to alarm a purist, but it seems to work OK for
us, and we probably do it a couple of hundred times each spring to level
the colony sizes a bit. Should only be done once there is a honey flow,
however. If there is no flow you would have to simulate this by feeding
syrup.
 
Take a bar or two of hatching (certainly as advanced as you have) brood
from the strong hive. Shake the bees off it back into their own colony
(in other words transfer brood only, not brood and bees). Place this
brood in the weaker hive, and put the spare bars back into the donor
colony outside the remaining brood nest.
 
Swap the positions of the two colonies.
 
The heavier weight of flying bees from the strong colony boosts the weak
one and means the brood will be kept warm, whilst you will have left all
the nurse bees with the larger one to keep their brood warm too once the
flying bees have left.
 
Occasional problems, perhaps 1 in 40 or so will either supercede or,
more rarely, just kill the poor colonies queen.
 
Only rules we can see to this are as follows:-
 
1 Must be done in a flow. (Prevents fighting)
 
2 Both colonies must be properly queenright with laying queens.
Prospects of success are lessened if the small colonies queen is
significantly older than that in the large one (by a season or more,
although in California this could possibly be good bit less due to queen
fatigue in the long season).
 
3 Must be done early enough in the day (AND in good enough conditions)
for the flying bees to move over to the recipient colony before
nightfall.
 
Might sound a strange system, and it surprised me a little in my early
days, but there was an old time beekeeper in Scotland who practised this
all through spring and early summer. It was his swarm control system,
and it resembled playing chess with the bees, constantly flighting bees
away from colonies making swarm preparations. Have never gone that far,
but he certainly got good crops that way.
 
Hope this helps.
 
Murray
--
Murray McGregor
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