Having had to unite two coloneys, I fed wih a 1:1 soluion in a rapid feeder the one with the fine mesh.(Hive 2)
On my return 8 days later for some reason the syrup had crystalised over the mesh, not allowing the bees to feed. Lost a large amount of bees. I was planning on merging this hive with my only good hive, the others as from my previous post did not make it.
However, got into the remaining hive yesterday and the queen must have gone senile! Her laying pattern is ridiculous. She has layed patches of brood over 9 frames and not even all in the centre of the frames.
The hive will certainly be struggling to raise this brood.
Any suggestions, I was going to sacrife the frames which have the largest percentage of drone brood on and maybe move the strongest frames to a 5 frame nuc.
It would also be a good idea to merge hive 2 to this hive, can this all be done at the same time. The nuc has a OMF so was thinking could I put this over the existing crown board for a couple of days. then shake the remaining bees from the full hive into the nuc, would you suggest using air freshner to speed up the merge.
Any suggestions welcome, feels like the bees are trying their best to make me an ex-beekeeper.
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