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/