You learned in Topic 7 that a weak hive has a small population of worker bees flying in and out at the entrance. It will not have very many frames of bees and brood. This may be because:

• you have recently split this hive and it has not had time to grow yet.
• the queen is poor and not laying many eggs.
• the weather has been bad with not many good flying days.
• there are not many flowers making nectar.

A weak hive will not make much honey. To make lots of honey you must make your beehives strong. One strong hive with many workers will make more honey than many weak hives.

There are many different things you can try to make a weak hive strong. If the weak hive is a new split or nuc, then maybe all you need to do is wait. Check the hive regularly. Write down how many frames of bees and brood you see. This will show you if the hive is growing. If the number of frames covered with bees and brood does not increase after a few weeks, then you may want to stop waiting and start doing something.

The following are some things you can do to strengthen a weak hive.

Boost: You may want to give your weak hive some help. Give the hive a boost. Give it one or two frames of capped (soon to emerge) brood from another strong hive. Brush all of the bees off of the frames before you put them in the weak hive or the bees from the two hives will fight. Put this capped brood in the middle of the weak hive. This capped brood will emerge into the weak hive and help strengthen it.

Unite: If the hive is VERY weak you will need to give it brood AND bees from a strong hive. Unite the bees over a piece of newspaper, so their smell will get mixed up and they won’t fight.

Equalize: Move your weak hive, and put it where a strong hive was. Put the strong hive back in the place where your weak hive was. The field bees from your strong hive will join your weak hive. The field bees from your weak hive will join your strong hive. When bees are flying back from the flowers with nectar and pollen, they are welcome in any hive. They are bringing food, so they will not fight. This is a very easy way to “equalize” a weak and a strong hive. It makes them the same strength.