Adding bees/brood to re-captured swarms

[litefoot]

I was fortunate enough to recapture two swarms earlier this year (although I lost one yesterday). The mother colonies of both swarms are still pretty full to the point of needing another split. Not really wanting more hives at this point, I thought I'd relieve some of the pressure by moving bees/brood/comb to the swarm hives which would also help build them up before the main nectar flow starts. Is there a limit on the number of frames of bees I can move without overwhelming the swarm colonies?

[blueblood]

I was thinking no more than 1/2.  But, you might look at this thread river posted a few days ago.  Maybe it will relate: http://www.worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/index.php/topic,1688.msg22493.html#msg22493

[litefoot]

Thanks for pointing that out, Blue. I love those awesome .pdf references Riverbee comes up with. It seems the author either shakes bees into a weak hive or he moves frames of capped brood without the attendants. My thought was to move brood frames along with the adhering bees.

[LazyBkpr]

I have done this by misting light syrup into the recipient hive, then I just slide the frame with attendants in, after misting the frame I am adding with light syrup as well.  I do this quite a lot with frames from nuc's...
   It is one of the best ways to manage a nuc to keep it from swarming, and it will make a growing colony a boomer quickly.  The growing colony will become a production hive, the new frames you give the nuc's will be drawn in worker comb..  I do occasionally see a fight on the landing board...   foragers trying to exit or normal activity?  By fighting I mean one or two fights, bees roll off landing board, one flies off, the other goes back to guard duty... and this is about once in four or five frames added.  I have seen no fighting inside the hive, only the occasional roll about in the front.
   I have NOT attempted to do this with a large amount of bees/brood, but not sure there would be a diffeence?   If the arriving bees decide to kill the existing queen?  No idea..  I have combined nearly equal hives with the newspaper method, but have never tried to combine them directly.

[litefoot]

Wow! What a difference a day makes! I found the 3rd swarm in a nearby tree and got it hived. Then when I inspected the other two swarms, I found they are on good footing. One has drawn nearly a full deep in a little over a week and it's got a couple of good frames of capped brood, The other has 3-4 full frames of brood and has drawn 5 or 6 frames in about 10 days of moderate feeding. The mother hives of all three didn't have any brood to donate anyway as the remaining queens (if they're in there) probably haven't had time to hatch, mate and start laying.