FWIW: I just read Ed Colby's column in the Jan. 2017 issue of
Bee Culture magazine. Ed sends some of his hives to California for the almond crop. While preparing his colonies to send, late last fall, he was reminded of a technique that works for a fellow beekeeper. This all sounds very much like what Chip just posted. Ed writes:
"You can combine hives to make the grade for the almonds, if you do it a special way. Here's how: You combine all the bees from one hive into a single deep super, and you put two pollen patties side by side on top. Then you put the second hive on top of the first, again, shaking its bees into one box."
"Paul said he never had any luck combining hives for the almonds until he started doing it this way. Weak colonies would just poop out, even after the addition of another weak hive. Now his combination hives return from the almonds rarin' to be split. You don't use newspaper, like they tell you to in the bee books. Just pollen patties. You don't have to send your bees to California to try this. You could do this for any hive unions but especially for overwintering colonies." "I have no idea why uniting hives this way would work better than with newspaper. It seems like hives either unite peacefully under one or both queens or they don't."
Chip, pardon me if you have posted this elsewhere before, but how do you feed? Frame feeders?
Yep and I leave them in the hive all the time. I do clean them out a little when I'm making splits in spring. Pollen sub goes between 2 pieces of wax paper and between the two boxes.
