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Thursday, September 25, 2014
I'M GOING TO JUST DO IT THIS YEAR!
I noted two "small" hives this morning. Small enough that I'm questioning their survivability over winter. They're NOT packing away the sugar syrup either! I so far have always "kicked myself" IN THE SPRING for not trying overwintering small hives TOGETHER (yes - stacked on top of one another). I'm going to tear into them and see what 'das going on...and combine them. They're small enough that I might be able to franken-hive the frames to one box each hive - then newspaper combine them with a queen excluder. They may not really like me and it might fail miserably....but if they're DOOMED anyway - I guess they could get it over with more quickly. (see UPDATE in comment area) my 150# producing hive has dwindled to NOTHING....she's being incorporated to another hive.
UPDATE: two small hives were in fact QUEENLESS. A queenless hive is a STORAGE HIVE - the cells are full of pollen and honey. Each hive got "franken-framed" down to one deep/box...and from there - combined with a good hive via the clearing board. Yes - i'm trying the clearing board (maze) to get them out of the top box (rather than the newspaper method) - i thought it will be killing two birds with one stone. GET THEM OUT and GIVE THEM TIME to integrate into the new hive. BEES EVERYWHERE - they were not happy as their equipment (hives) began to disappear :( i hate messing with them to this degree...but they're DOOMED anyway.
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