I checked the bees today last week I did my first news paper combine and after I finished I received a desperate phone call from the person that gave me the bees . He thoubht that I might have the Queen in the 3 pound package he gave me.Did I start to worry because the Queen I had in that hive was doing great. So on to the internet I went to a chat romm called Beesource http://www.beesource.com/forums/index.php
to try and find out how to fix the problem. Well after everyone stopped laughing and teasing me about what I did. Remind you I did not do it on purpose. They told me to try and put a Queen exclude at the bottom of the new package I introduced. I went to do what they told me and I found that they had already started to combine. So they told me that the two Queens would fight it out and the strongest would win. I should also leave them alone for 3 to 5 days and then go back and look. I got to tell you that it was the hardest 5 days I can remember. The first night was like a bunch of crazy bees flying around the hive making all kinds of noise . Did not get much sleep that first night. Seems crazy to me loosing sleep over a bunch of bugs that I just met. So every day I kept feeding them and each day they calmed done more and more Well in five days I did go back in and sure enough there was only one Queen and it seems she was doing well. I would like to mention one thing about doing a newspaper combine remember to put the old bees on top and the new bees on the bottom, they tell me it works out better that way, not sure why. I was also told that if you do put two Queens together the one you put in the top box is 9 times out of 10 the one that will survive.
