Uniting Colonies
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A colony that does not reach sufficient strength by late summer rarely survives the winter.
A colony that does not reach sufficient strength by late summer rarely survives the winter. As a benchmark: if a colony is not sitting on at least five well-occupied combs in autumn, it should be united with another. Two weak colonies, however, do not make one strong one; a small colony should always be paired with a vigorous one.
The newspaper method is standard: a sheet of newspaper is laid between the boxes and given a few holes. The bees usually chew through it overnight, often within four to eight hours, taking on the shared hive scent as they do so, without fighting. This runs most calmly in the evening, when all the foraging bees are home.
Two conditions: only unite healthy colonies, a diseased colony must never be united onto a healthy one. And always keep only one queen, namely the young, vital one, whichever of the two colonies she comes from.