Hi,
It's Spring over here, and while there isn't a big flow on, there is plenty of foraging about and most hives are expanding quite well. I had two weak hives, and decided to do a newspaper combine. I found and killed the queen in one hive, and put a few holes in a sheet of newspaper with my hive tool to separate the two hives before combining them. When I came back a couple of weeks later, I found a huge number of dead bees out front, and one very weak hive.
Large portions (but not all) of the open brood was dead in the cells. I assume that there was just not enough bees left to feed and to keep all of the brood warm. I can only assume that there was an all out war between the hives :(
The queen is laying fine, as I saw a lot of eggs.
Can anyone give me some ideas on what I did wrong please? I need to understand this or I'll be afraid to try another combine in future.
Thanks,
John.