Central Oregon Beekeeping Association - I'm a confused new beekeeper

Reply to: I'm a confused new beekeeper

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<blockquote>Richard Turner wrote:

Hey Mark, so I often don't find my queen when I am in the hive but what I call Queen Blindness (a beekeepers ability to see a queen when she is right there in front of you) gets better with time but is susceptible to random reoccurrence. Mostly I look for signs of a queen, specifically eggs and larvae (more so than capped brood). Finding eggs and larva lets you know that a queen is in the hie even of you don't see her. So it sounds like you have 2 hives as you are talking about joining them, if your hives have little stores of honey and pollen laid in even if you do possibly have 2 queens then by all means join them. One stronger hive is more likely to survive than 2 weaker hives. Certainly give a good look through both hives for a queen, if you find one go ahead and squish one and combine. If you squish a queen I would let that hive be queenless for a day before combining and I personally use the newspaper method. After the hives have been combined for a few days you can get back in there and condense all of your brood areas from each hive into the bottom box and put more of your honey resources in the top box.

Good luck.

R
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