Image via WikipediaIn the last visit to the bees before I went on holiday I took the bold step of starting the unification process for the two hives. Early that day I found the old queen in the bigger colony and put her in a jar with a couple of other bees that came along for the ride. I then left those bees to get all worried for a good few hours because their queen had gone missing.
I'm such a softy that I couldn't bear to squish the queen so decided to give her a less painful death by putting her in the freezer. That means she died more slowly but it seemed less cruel.
Later in the day I went back and put the two colonies together, separating them only by a sheet of newspaper. The idea is that they chew their way through and in that process mingle smells and become one happy colony under a new queen. As I went on holiday almost straight after I have no idea if it worked. When I go back this week I will find out.
Other things I need to do this week is get the tidied up supers off and put them in the freezer for a bit to kill the wax moth. Then they need fumigating and storing properly. The other big job is to put the bees into a couple of brood boxes to start shrinking numbers ready for the winter. Plus I can go through and pick the best frames so they have enough stores to tide them over winter. I'm nervous about seeing what has happened. If it has all gone horribly wrong I could be left without any bees at all.
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