Introducing Bees Slowly as They Adjust Their New Hive
A newspaper combine is used to unite two colonies – one receives bees, the other donates them. Combines can be done by providing weak hives with adult bees and/or brood from a stronger hive, or when the entire brood box of a weak colony is added to another hive. Newspaper combines work through pheromones and nestmate recognition- adult bees identify hivemates from the “smell” carried on their exoskeleton’s hydrocarbons. This signature develops when the young bee is exposed to the brood and queen pheromones, marking her as a member of the colony.
To perform a combine in a Langstroth hive, place 2-3 sheets of thin paper (newspaper is large and easy) atop the receiving the hive, completely covering the box. An empty super box is placed on this this layer and small holes are poked through the newspaper using a fork or toothpick. Then add bees- whether through shaking bees on top of the layer or a whole box. Place the lid, and let the bees chew the paper. Over the 2-3 days, the incoming bees integrate to the new hive’s scent. By the time of union, the colony merges into one as the donor bees bear their new hive’s hydrocarbon signature.
Uses of Newspaper Combine: Strengthening a Weak Colony
In a combine, a single sheet of newspaper (or any papery material that’ll cover hive box top– e.g. A3 paper) is placed between the two colonies. The paper is a temporary barrier, preventing immediate contact between the bees. This gradual integration process allows the incoming bees to adjust to the colony’s scent as they chew through the openings made by the beekeeper.
Once inside, the new bees resume normal duties – cleaning, defending, brood care and so on- as if it were their new home…. Because it is their new home. The two weak colonies have become one stronger colony which should1 be stronger and more efficient.
Strengthening Without a Combine
For a small boost in colony strength, one or two capped brood frames can be added. If you’re confident in separating the nurse bees from foragers (as well as the queen!), they too can be included in that frame, otherwise, consider adding capped brood without any bees. This is method is quicker and does not sacrifice a colony – after all, the capped brood will emerge over the coming week, and those adults will begin cell cleaning duty.
Why can’t you add any adult bee from the donor colony? It’s because the pheromones will mismatch and will (likely) trigger fighting between the introduced foragers and resident bees. Not ideal, considering the recipient hive is weak.
Add Middle Aged Bees from the Super to your Recipient Colony
If you want to add older bees for an immediate boost, consider shaking bees from the donor colony’s honey super into the receipting colony’s frames. We know from studies on division of labour that middle-aged bees are the nectar receivers and processes – when a forager returns, she offloads her honey stores to a receiving bee, who then takes it to cells for further processing.
Whilst middle aged bees engage in guarding duty, it is the foragers who sting you. Like younger adult bees, middle aged bees are accepted into a colony as they do not display defensive behaviours, and so the recipient colony does not attack them. Once inside, they integrate into the colony via scent and queen pheromones, resuming normal hive duties.
Does the Order of Donor and Recipient Colony Matter?
In short, order matters. The stronger of the two hives will be the recipient (“placed on the bottom”), and the weaker hive is the donor (“placed on top and separated by a newspaper sheet). The brood/food frames from the weaker/donor hive can be given to the stronger hive for use, assuming they are disease-free and in good condition.
A strong colony is assessed on the basis of hive stores, population, brood count and queen behaviour. Add the weak to the strong hive so that the assimilated workers will contribute to the strong hive’s resources.
If the opposite was done, i.e. a weak colony was the recipient and the strong colony a donor, then these merged bees will spend extra effort reproducing the hive stores that were already gathered in their original hive, a net negative effect on hive productivity. Also, the donated bees will be ruled by a (assumedly) weaker queen, for Her Majesty is a large driver of colony productivity, impairing the post-combine productivity.
The Role of Queen Pheromones in Newspaper Combines
Main article: Pheromones in Honey Bees
The major colony pheromone is the queen mandibular pheromone (QMP). It is a blend of five chemicals that signal queen presence within the hive. When a colony is combined, the recipient colony’s scent overtakes the donor colony’s old scent, which is a combination of QMP and pheromones stored in the wax comb. When a worker bee bearing QMP interacts with another worker (via feeding or grooming), she will pass the QMP to her, and that worker will go on to pass it to others until the entire hive bears Her Majesty’s scent.
Grozinger & colleagues showed that QMP influences gene expression in the worker bee brain (Grozinger et al. 2003). This delays the transition from nursing to foraging, it makes bees who are already workers more likely to stay workers, increasing the gene expression associated with nursing and decreasing those associated with foragers. Perhaps these behavioural changes make workers more attentive to Her Majesty, dedicating more time to brood and queen care, and along with general colony cohesion.
It is the presence and adaptation to the new queen pheromones that makes a combine possible. As the bees slowly chew through the newspaper/paper sheeting, they integrate the new queen’s scent into their cuticles and by the time they reach the main hive, they are considered nestmates and are not harmed.
What if the Donor Colony Contained a Queen?
In theory, this would lead to fighting between the two colonies once the newspaper layer is removed. The colonies register the other as an intruder and will attempt to remove them from the nest. If the colonies are evenly matches, then much fighting ensures and perhaps both colonies collapse. If one is somewhat stronger than the other, the stronger colony survives and be weaker for it. Check your frames before splitting, ensure the queen is dead or removed elsewhere!
I say “in theory” because in reality… you can end up with a colony of two queens. A year ago I performed a combine, waited for the newspaper to be chewed through and then added a queen excluder. After inspecting it a fortnight later I… found sealed brood in the super. There were two queens – one in the super and one in the brood box, and the worker populations coexisted without conflict
This is a rare situation that I have yet to recreate (three seasons and counting) – how were the workers able to live with two queen pheromones? Perhaps the recipient colony’s queen pheromones were stronger than the donor and were able to overwhelm (“subjugate”) the donor queen, kind of like a princedom within a kingdom. For those thinking “it’s possible if they were related” – they were not sister queens and had come from separate packages.
Bottom line, it’s unlikely this rarity applies to you – be sure to remove the queen from your donor colony before combining.
Why is a Barrier Used for Combines?
The barrier helps with the transition from one set of pheromones to the other. If the hives were combined right away, then a situation like the above occurs: pheromone mismatch between the donor and recipient colony leading to fights. The recipient colony initiates combat, as they are defending a sudden intrusion to their home, costing you bees in the process.
Exceptions exist, for example if the recipient colony is very weak (as in a nuc or a new split), the donated bees may be accepted right away – it is on this premise I added nurse and middle-aged bees to my splits- these bees are more likely to integrate without a newspaper combine, and thus far they have been doing it fine.
By having two or three days to chew the barrier, the donor colony adjusts to their new hive’s pheromones, and by the time they’re reunited, their cuticular hydrocarbon profile is much like the recipient colon and life goes on.
Newspaper Combines in Non-Langstroth Hive Types
What if you own a non-Langstroth type hive? I think in a Warre hive, the principle is the same – put a sheet of newspaper on the bottom box and then add another box with the donor bees from the bottom up – Warre hive supers are added at the bottom, rather than the top like Langstroth’s.
If you owned a natural tree hive, or a horizontal hive? I don’t think newspaper combines are possible. How would you create a barrier in the tree hollow, or separate a section of the horizontal hive with newspapers without trapping recipient colony bees?
If you want to add worker bees in such colonies, I will take young bees (i.e. not foragers who’ve done their orientation flights) and dump them at the hive entrance. They will be disoriented for a while, but eventually will smell a hive and attempt to walk in. being young(er), they are less likely to be fought by the guard bees and can resume their duties inside their new hive.
Why not foragers? Foragers who’ve completed their orientation flights know their way home– dump foragers at the receiving hive’s entrance and watch them fly back. As the old saying goes “move them [hives] a little or move them a lot” – if you take foragers from a hive that is >3 kilometres away from the recipient, they would be unlikely to return and attempt to beg entrance into the new hive.
Calculating the Time for Adjustment
In conclusion, there is no set method to determine how long it will take for the bees to chew through the newspaper. Too many factors are involved- the thickness of the newspaper, the strength and numbers of the workers from the donor and recipient colonies, the weather, donor bee energy and so on.
My rule of thumb: if you’ve added a lot of bees (eyeball how much is “a lot” to you), check back 2-3 days after the combine to see if they’ve cleared a way through. Less bees? 3-4 days, or even five days. If you need to add more frames, do so after they’ve integrated. Once united, leave the colony undisturbed for a week or two, and then resume inspections as normal.
Performing combines is a lot easier than you think; don’t overthink it and let the bees work on their own terms.
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Footnotes
- I state “should” because if one of the colonies was weak due to incurable diseases like American foulbrood or heavy mite infestations, then a combine just prolongs the colony’s death – if both colonies were weak due to lack of resources, or a poorly-mated queen, the combine is more likely to be successful. ↩︎