Albuquerque Journal, eaten by bees

One way I like to bolster a hive throughout the season is to combine it with a small swarm or other weak hive. It’s the lazy girl’s guide to solving common problems like uniting a queenless hive with a queenright hive or combining a couple small swarms into one strong colony.

Day 1: Combine hives separated by 1 layer of newspaper

Day 3: Hives have chewed through the paper and combined, hopefully painlessly.

Newspaper Method of Combining Bees

1. Take a small hive and remove the hive cover and inner cover.
2. Place a piece or two of newspaper atop the frames in the top box. Cut a slit or two in the paper (optional).
3. On top of this, add a box with your new colony or swarm.
4. Close ‘er up and wait a couple days.
5. OPTIONAL: Sometimes I leave a top entrance for the top box. Othertimes I don’t. Depends on the strength of that hive and how hot temperatures are projected to be.