I accidentally ordered 2 packages of bees and only have one hive.
Is it possible to combine the bees into one hive from the very start? I imagine that I have to remove one of the two queens. But… I’m guessing that the non-queen bees may war with each other.
Any ideas as to how I would pull this off?
Thanks
Several choices:
Personally, I would probably just risk it, but then I already have a couple of hives. Option 2 is safer if you don’t. 
A third option would be to call the supplier and ask if you can cancel one package. They sell fast, so they may well be willing.
P.S. If you choose to combine both packages, and you have a spare queen, I would keep her in a cool location like a garage or basement, until I knew that the first queen had survived after the first 3 days. That way, you have a backup in case the package rejects the first one.
Thanks Dawn. This sounds like good advice.
I successfully combined a second package into a 3 week old established hive. I did option 2, the newspaper trick. Workout fine.
Joe
This is standard practice for combining two colonies in the UK so go for it
I’d add a divider in the middle of the hive and bottom board and run it as a split with two colonies in one box.
Look up “palmerized hive”
Hi Stephen, if you plan on getting another hive in the near future, you could put the second colony into a polystyrene fruit box temporarily until you get a second box sorted out. I found a box that full depth frames fitted into once, that worked out well for me. I just had to stand then up & maintain a bee space between them, that was no problem.
Uniting them with newspaper is fine, but I’m just thinking of the second queen.
Does it make it more or less likely to succeed if you use multiple packages (3+) or if none of the packages came with a queen and you introduce a caged queen to your packages after they are combined?
Never tried it, so I can’t answer that. 
Aren’t package bees already mixed up from multiple hives usually anyway? It would seem that if none of the bees have anything to defend (food, hive, brood) and aren’t in the presence of a familiar queen, they wouldn’t be likely to fight.
Seem right?
They may be, or they can be from one hive. It depends on the supplier. However, they are all nurse bees, shaken from brood frames, so they are less likely to fight than older bees.
If you buy a package, they almost always ship with a queen. During transport, they have time to become accustomed to the scent of the queen in the package. If you mixed several packages, they may take exception to any queen that was not in their transport container. Bit risky imho.
However, @Doug1 has extensive experience with annual package installation, so he may be a better person to answer your question.
If I did this it would be with 3lb packages pickup up, not mailed, all without a queen already inside…
Might be OK, then. Hopefully you will let us know after you have done the experiment! 
If I was doing it, I would probably use 2 brood boxes with newspaper between them, then condense down after 3 or 4 days. But I am a cautious (mask-wearing) soul, generally.
I can’t imagine that you would want or need more than 6lb of bees in a startup hive. That is 20,000 bees, with no comb (unless you have drawn comb to give them), few foragers and no brood. They are going to go through a lot of syrup. A good nucleus will have about 6,000 bees and 3 frames of brood = another 15,000 or so bees. That is plenty to start from
It will be an experiment! I will give them some drawn comb and syrup.
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/understanding-colony-buildup-and-decline-part-1/
chau06 That’s quite the experiment you have planned…and the link to Randy Oliver’s article brings back a lot of nostalgia…as this phenomenon of package bee brood production is so interesting.
Although I’m located a long ways north of you, you may find my experience somewhat useful.
When I started out beekeeping, most beekeepers brought in 2lb packages…worked them diligently so that they were at least 2 boxes of bees before the honeyflow…that was generally accepted as a rule of thumb…then the hives were moved to the clover/alfalfa/canola fields, and then supered up for the summer. As I didn’t have the experience these commercial guys had in brood buildup techniques, I bought crop insurance in the form of 4lbs of bees instead of 2 lbs/hive…no other beekeepers were doing that in my area.
Well it sure turned out to be a different way of keeping bees…and it served me well. As Randy says:
"Before any brood reached maturity, many of the colonies had put on about 40 lbs of honey, and contained up to 8 frames at least partially covered with brood (which we then sold as nucs in order to easily pay for the bulk bees)."
We re-couped the additional expense of the 4lb packages by trapping pollen…but we had to design our own large capacity pollen trap to handle what those worker bees were capable of bringing in.
Not only was there pollen to trap off willow and dandelion, there was often 80lbs/hive of dandelion honey to extract.
We shook the 4lb packages into two brood boxes but every frame in the bottom brood box was sprayed full of thick sugar syrup…those strong hives consumed huge amounts of feed to rear so much brood…plus we still could get extended cold snaps at that time of year. The hives were well insulated under the lids as the photo shows.
I had to chuckle when I saw this photo of Randy’s:
10 lbs of bulk bees/hive…and queens restricted to one brood box with an excluder…that may work in California but due to ample bee resources in my area, that amount of bees I would have installed in 3 or 4 boxes. I suspect your conditions would be closer to mine than those of California. If I didn’t trap pollen, my hives would have plugged out with pollen…so I would recommend you look into a pollen trap for each hive.
It’s so much more fun dealing with super strong hives than waiting for weak colonies to build up in population.
As far as Randy’s research on the hive reaching a brood plateau…after our hives finished dandelions, we found the queen and put her below the queen excluder in a single box of empty frames for the remainder of the summer…so in effect reset the hive…and then the hive doesn’t sputter midsummer but just keeps growing. Taranoving works real well as a hive reset technique.
Bulk bees can be added in the evening…I like letting them walk into the hive…but because in your case there is no brood to anchor them, watch out for drift and be prepared to equalize as Randy did the next day. Having feed inside for them will help them work away in the hive…not flying around looking for resources.
I can’t imagine the potential three 3 lb packages/hive is…sure will keep you on your toes and I hope you keep us posted…good luck!
Thank you for your thoughts and experience.
How long after installing the four pounds of bees did you split off the nucs?
I had not considered the hives being pollen-bound… Will look into a pollen trap.
I am not planning to put all three together, just 2 in a double deep 10 frame with some foundation, some drawn comb. The third I was planning to combine with a nuc for a boost. Should I just dump those bees in front of the nuc or newspaper combine them?
I have a 4 gal hive top feeder that I was planning to give them - hopefully that will give them a little bit of runway!
After the dandelion flow ended would work…there is about a 2 week lull before clover flow starts here but back in those days we didn’t make up nucs. Now with winter colonies run with New Zealand packages, I get the NZ packages established in a separate location until they have capped brood, then bring those strong wintered colonies over, find the old queen and set her aside to make nucs all summer, and then Taranov the wintered hives into the NZ packages. Or just take bulk bees and add.
.In the photo above, the NZ packages are in the beehouse on the left…wintered colonies on the ground (wintered colonies brought to this location a few minutes ago) are ready to be added. Those wintered colonies have almost reached the brood plateau Randy describes in your link. Notice that the dandelions are just starting to bloom…so that particular spring the hives came out of wintering very strong and had to be managed earlier. If I don’t take this measure, the wintered colonies end up in the trees or lose their brood rhythm shortly…sometimes I use the older queen in a double-queen version on top of the NZ packages…but she has to be from a nuc from the late summer the year before…so not layed-out.
Yes…I have never had an established NZ package queen damaged by bulk bees…even if the bulk bees were made up an hour or two before…there is a mixture from a bunch of hives…but it’s important to have separate locations. You can move them back to one location later if that is necessary. I say this because in your case I think you have an established queen right nuc in proximity to where you want to install the other packages. There’s a good chance that your bulk bees from the other hive(s) will end up in that nuc…it will act as a magnet.
Should work.
