I just installed 2 new packages of bees. I went out to check to see if the queens had been released 3 days later, to find out that one of the hives, all but a handful had merged with the other hive. The queen had been released in both but now I have a really small hive and a huge one. Any suggestions?
What I’m thinking is you could swap the hives positions during good weather.
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Would shaking off nurse bees into the smaller hive work as well? I imagine any of the foragers would go back to the other hive but the nurse bees should stay.
I thought about that but wasn’t sure if it would work. I suppose it can’t hurt to try.
These are only package bees 3 days ago. I’m thinking there would be no nurse bees yet. I have no experience with package bees, however I’m wondering if a lot of bees from one package joined the other package because they originally came from the same colony.
I would keep them separated by a few feet, let them get established, then, as long as the weather if fine & the foragers are bringing nectar in, swap the hives positions. That will even up the populations.
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I will try that. Thank you
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There won’t be any that you can identify until there is significant brood.
Ooooops Jeff beat me to it. I should read the whole thread
Curious third year beek question: why not just let them build up as one colony, and look towards splitting them later if they build up nicely enough?
PS: @Ppud I’m not sure where Leslie is on the map - can you give us an idea & we can better advise 
The reason I say that is because the two packages I got seemed to have a fair amount of young bees. Although I suppose that every package is going to be different.
Leslie is in mi. South of lansing and north of jackson
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