For development or test, you can do it in Gemfile. You can even point it to use your local folder.
gem 'gem_b', path: "/path/to/the/folder"
or to use a git reference
gem 'gem_b', git: "[email protected]:user/gem_b.git"
This will allow you to do the development and testing.
Another option is this. If you have 2 engines, I assume you also have a Rails app to use them. In that rails app, you can simply require them in Gemfile one after another using git reference.
gem 'gem_b', git: "[email protected]:user/gem_b.git"
gem 'gem_a', git: "[email protected]:user/gem_a.git"
If you must declare this dependency in gemspec, you can build the gem using rake;
cd /path/to/gem_b
rake build
This will create a gem_b.gem file under pgk folder.
Then you can install it in your local using gem instal like this
gem install pgk/gem_b.gem
Now you have gem_b installed in our local. There will be no problem adding it as a dependency in gemspec.
When you are ready to release your application, you need to copy gem_b.gem to your server and install using usual way;
gem install /full/path/to/gem_b.gem