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Uniting Honey Bee Colonies

An index of several methods

The correct term that has been used for a long time that everyone knows and understands is "Uniting", not "combining", "merging", "amalgamating", "joining" or any of the other terms that have crept into beekeeping in recent years. I think these have come from inexperienced people who have tried to teach or write books before they have the knowledge to do so, or are aware of the correct terminology.

This page provides a focus for methods and equipment that can be used to unite colonies, nuclei or a single frame of bees.

There are many different circumstances when it is advisable to unite groups of bees, such as:-

There are many other reasons, but whatever it is, here are some simple rules that you may find helpful:-

The "newspaper bag" method is used to unite a frame of bees to an existing colony. Such an additional frame may have a queen for requeening purposes or not as the case may be.

Roger Patterson.

Page updated 21/12/2022