The number of honeybees in a colony defines the productivity or strength of a colony. The more the number, the better the colony is at collecting food resources and performing in-house tasks. Increasing a colony’s population is a regular and essential part of beekeeping. It helps to revive a weak hive. Once a nuc or a small swarm has been settled in a hive, an apiarist has to enhance an increase in the bee population promptly.

Increasing the population of bees can be done in various ways: some are simple, while others are complex. The choice depends on the beekeeper. 
A beekeeper should use the locally adapted bees when promoting the colony’s size. 

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How to Increase Bee Population in a Hive?

Adding Capped Brood

When a colony is small or has begun to shrink, it will benefit from a boost in population. If you have another colony that is healthy, you can take a frame of capped brood from them and give it to the smaller hive. 

You should get a frame that is mainly capped. Uncapped brood will stress the weak hive since the young larvae will require abundant food and nurse bees’ resources. A capped brood will require a warm environment for the pupa to hatch into adult bees. 

After hatching, the colony will have a fresh batch of nurse bees to take care of the queen and enhance her to lay more eggs to start bringing up the population again. However, you should be careful not to weaken the strong colony by taking too much brood at once. 

Requeening

If you find your hive is shrinking, the first step is to ensure that you have a queen. A hive may decrease population because it is queenless or the queen is not productive. 

Catching a Swarm

Catching a  swarm is an easy way to boost the population of your hive. It is incredible to collect and hive stray swarms. You just need to place a swarm trap in the wild to catch swarming honey bee colonies. You can then add the swarms to your existing bee colony. 

When taking a swarm, look closely to examine if it looks healthy. If many bees look sickly, adding them to your colony is not advisable since they require treatment first. 

Using Package Bees

A package of bees comprises the queen, workers, and a few drones but doesn’t have food resources. It can be a problem when you want a hive increase. Most bee packages comprise approximately 10,000 bees( 3 pounds). A pound contains roughly 3300 -3500 bees. You can buy 2 to 3 pounds to boost your hive. You should kill the queen a day before installing a package since two queens cannot live in one colony. You can also consider adding a queenless booster package.

Using Nucleus Hives

A nucleus hive contains a small colony of honey bees, complete with a queen bee. You move the nucleus hive into a standard hive with the frames containing brood and stored honey. 

It is good to unite the nucleus hive with the existing one when most worker bees are away foraging. The bees in the nucleus and brood chamber are young and will be united without fights. Alternatively, you can use the newspaper method to separate the two groups with a newspaper. 

Feeding

A shrinking hive can be caused by lack of sufficient food. If the bees don’t have honey, the queen will not lay well, and bees will not have the energy to forage or fight for the colony. After carrying out your inspection, you can consider offering sugar water and pollen substitutes if you realize they don’t have adequate food. 

Pollen substitutes will promote brood production. A sufficient store of pollen and honey will encourage the queen to lay more eggs and the nurse bees to rear the larvae.

Uniting Two Weak Colonies

Sometimes, things happen in beekeeping, and you may find yourself with two weak hives. If both colonies have a queen, it is good to get rid of one before joining them. You may also consider ordering a new queen for the two colonies. 

You combine the colonies using the newspaper method whereby you separate the two with a newspaper with three slits on it. The slits allow the pheromones to be exchanged between the colonies. By the time the bees chew through the newspaper, they will have gotten used to each other and integrated without fighting. 

Adding Drawn Foundation

If the bee colony doesn’t have a drawn comb in between the brood frame, you can add some to give the queen ample space to lay eggs. She will keep filling them up with eggs if she has enough space. 

How to Prepare Your Hive for Hive Increase?

Before initiating a hive increase, this is how to ensure your colony is prepared for it.

Ensure there are Abundant Food Stores

Ensure that the honey bee colony has sufficient food stores: pollen and honey. It is advisable to carry out a hive increase proportional to the food resources available and the number of bees in the nest. 

Ensure Your Colony is Healthy

You should ensure you have a healthy bee colony for hive increases. Feeding and adding brood on a parasite or disease-infested colony will not help much. If the hive has a high mite count, you will be required to take the necessary measures. 

The health of the Queen

A healthy, mated queen is useful in hive increase; if the queen is unproductive queen, you may consider re-queening the colony. 

Ensure there is Room for Expansion

This is another requirement when you are considering boosting the hive population. Have a ready space for the additional bees in the colony. You may consider an extra box if using a Langstroth hive. 

Ensure You Have the Necessary Equipment

You will require some tools and equipment. Some of these include queen cages, extra boxes, beehive frames with combs on them, etc. 

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FAQs

How do you help a struggling hive?

You can help a shrinking hive by adding capped broods, requeening the hive, feeding them, and treating parasites like mites.

Can you add bees to a weak hive?

Yes, you can add bees to a weak hive, but you should ensure sufficient food stores, enough space, and a healthy queen.

Can you save a dying beehive?

In some cases, you can if the colony is healthy. If Infested by American foulbrood, you need to burn the hive to eliminate the disease spores. 

How do you check whether your colony is strong or weak?

You know a strong colony by its population, food stores, and the brood. You can examine the population by opening the lid. If the colony is strong, you will see bees hanging on the top frames. If no bees hang on the frames, the colony is weak.