Combining bee colonies is a way to create a strong colony of bees that is more efficient than individual colonies. The beekeeper may have several reasons why he is joining bee colonies. For example, he wants to improve the health of weakened families, create honey collectors, attach layers to queen bees. The difficulty is that a bee with a strange smell is attacked, since insects do not like guests.

How to reunite families in August and fall

A conscientious beekeeper, after the main collection of honey, makes sure that the bee colony in each hive is strong, and that the supply of feed is sufficient. Therefore, every hive is carefully checked. If it is found that the family does not overwinter, because there are too few insects, or for some reason most of the colony died, then the beekeeper decides to plant a weak family with a strong one.

The unification of bee colonies is necessary in order to form honeymen for the period of nectar collection. There are several methods for this. They are suitable for summer and autumn use.

Unification of bee families

The colony should go to winter with a sufficient amount of honey, as well as strong young growth. In the absence of one of the components in August or autumn, the colonies are combined. If the need arises, the beekeeper should ensure that the new colony will:

  • healthy;
  • have a large number of individuals;
  • have food supplies;
  • with a strong uterus.

If at least one of the conditions is not met, it is better to unite weak families. Otherwise, the colony will not survive the winter, and even if the swarm remains until spring, it will not be able to collect nectar, which is unprofitable for the beekeeper.

The union of bees in the fall or in August should also take place because if the family is weak, then until the end of the flower period, it will not be able to grow a new generation, and also stock up on food for the winter. It is sometimes difficult for even a strong colony to do this in the autumn months, since from time to time the flowering drops sharply.

[Important! Even if there is enough food, a weak colony will die in winter, as the number of individuals will be too small to maintain the required temperature in the hive. / Alert]

Association of bees in autumn or August

It is for this reason that the beekeeper decides that it is necessary to unite the families of bees into one. To do this, he can take two, three or even four weak colonies and make one swarm of them.

What is contactless beekeeping

How much honey from one hive per season

Non-contact beekeeping is understood as such a method of growing bees, when using hive-logs, which differ from the usual ones by simple, economical and environmentally friendly use.

Important! Thanks to contactless beekeeping, honey can be received by people with limited time, as well as physically, for example, the elderly or disabled.

For this, frameless hives are used, which are several times easier to maintain than classic bee houses. Since there are no frames in the hive-deck, then the very process of servicing the bee colony changes radically. The beekeeper only needs to remove part of the honeycomb so that the bees build new ones, passing into a swarm state.

Important! The beekeeper does not interfere in the life of the family, does not destroy its nest.

Honey from the hive-log is obtained precisely as medicinal, since it is aged for several months, and its diastatic number is also large enough.

As for the usual methods of extracting honey, the product needs a lot to earn more, so honey is sold immature, which has a bad effect on its quality.

In fact, in nature, honey accumulates in combs for more than one year. Then it turns out to be tasty, aromatic, medicinal, now it is almost impossible to find such a product. The process of producing honey with a diastase number of at least 50 remained only in Bashkiria, in the Shulgan-Tash reserve. Here bees collect the sweet product in the hollow, where it has been accumulating for more than one year by four meters deep.

To get a lot of marketable honey during the main honey collection period, it is possible to install a store building

Thanks to non-contact beekeeping, insects collect nectar in their hive-hives according to their instincts, as they did millennia ago.

Important! In order to get a lot of marketable honey during the main honey collection period, it is possible to install a store building where bees will fill the honeycomb to obtain low-quality honey.

How to unite bee colonies during the main honey collection

Bee syrup - ratios

When people talk about uniting bee colonies in autumn, they mean preparing them for wintering. During the onset of the main bribe, families are also united. This process takes place in June in order to obtain strong honey families.

Below is a step-by-step guide for vertical hives.

  1. After June 25, a strong colony is formed in the hive, since the bees have already moved away from winter, the young have grown, which are ready to collect nectar. This is the most appropriate time for a weak one to be added to such a family.
  2. It is necessary to remove all frames from the hive by placing one foundation. A Hahnemannian grid should be installed between the upper and lower housing. All sealed brood is removed from the hive together with the queen. There remains a new uterus and an empty honeycomb - foundation. It turns out that there is high-quality drying below, then there is a dividing grid, then a printed brood. Until the start of the bribe, the hives remain intact.
  3. Honey collection begins on July 7, so from June 25 in 10 days the young will come out of the honeycomb, freeing them for honey.
  4. When there is more than a kilogram of honey, you can proceed to the process of combining two bee families.
  5. In the daytime, when the weather is good, the bees fly often, you need to do a simple operation: the old colony is carried 4 m to the side, pouring water into the empty honeycombs so that there is no flying bee. As a result, it turns out that the new colony, the hive of which is placed in the center of the old locality, misses the bee from the old colony, since its goiter is full of nectar. This is how one strong family is formed from two weak families.

    You need to remove all frames from the hive

How is the process of uniting bees "through the newspaper"

Why don't bees seal honey even though the frames are full

Combining bee colonies when autumn comes can be done by transferring the family through paper.

Important! Bees unite easily during the main flow period and in early spring.

If this time has been lost, it will be difficult to gather several families into one, but it is possible using the “through the newspaper” method. For this, the hives must stand side by side. If this is not the case, then once a day they need to be brought to each other at a distance of half a meter until the desired location is reached.

Steps to be taken:

  1. 6 hours before the connection, you need to take the uterus from the family, which will be attached.
  2. In the evening, make sure that the bees have the same smell, for this it is enough to spray it several times with an aerosol, which is used to treat the throat, for example, ingolite or cameton, or sprinkle it with slightly warmed water with mint or menthol.
  3. Move the hive of the relocated family to the side, and put the one where the colony moves in the middle relative to the distance of the previously standing hives.
  4. Put a newspaper on the frames, in which you need to make 10 holes with a match or a toothpick. A hive with a colony that is attached is placed on the paper.
  5. If there are bees left in the old hive, then you just need to put it in front of the new one, and they themselves will ask for a new house.
  6. Over time, the bees will get rid of the paper themselves, throwing it out of the house.

    Bee associations "through the newspaper"

Unification of two families "under a glass"

The way to unite two families "under a glass" is that both families are sprayed with moonshine or vodka, perhaps alcohol. There is no need to be afraid that bees or honey will suffer. There will be no harm to anything. Why is the method good? Since bees are saturated with the smell of alcohol, which prevents them from determining where the brother-in-law is and where the stranger is. So from two weak families or two strong ones, if you want to make a honey cake with two shops, you get one full-fledged one.

What happens to the uterus? If both families were strong, then the weakest queen will be killed, and the strongest will become new for the formed family. If one of the families was without a queen, the drones will start looking for an approach to the newcomer.

How is the process of unification going "under a glass":

  1. It is necessary to remove the roof of each hive and remove the shops, if any.
  2. Light the bees a little with smoke so that they don't bite.
  3. Sprinkle both hives with vodka or alcohol in a good amount, you can use moonshine.
  4. Place one hive on top of another.
  5. Return stores.
  6. Cover with a roof.

Thus, there are no fights, no dead bees, because all insects begin to quickly ventilate the hive in order to expel the fusel smell from the frames and honeycombs. At this time, they themselves are strongly saturated with this smell, after which the gatekeepers can no longer distinguish where someone else's bee is, and where is their own. It turns out to be one big family.

Which of the ways to unite two bee families to choose the beekeeper, he decides for himself. But before that, he needs to weigh all the pros and cons of each, and then follow strict step-by-step instructions so that instead of merging it does not make things worse.