I performed a cut out in a old barn that was about to pushed down. There was a very large colony inside, I removed a lot of bees and brood. I was suprised to see that there was nothing in the way of honey stores though. After getting the girls home I decided to split them up into 3 seperate colonies. Each new colony was given several frames of both open and closed brood. I did make sure that each one had plenty of eggs and very young brood. So far they have been closed up for the past 4 days. I have screened bottom boards and they are in an area where they recieve afternoon shade. I have been feeding them 1:1 syrup and gave each one some pollen sub.
My questions are
When I open them up tomorrow will they attempt to join up with the queen right part of the split? I did move them 15 miles from their original location but now they are in the same yard and pretty close together.
Is there a better way to do this? I am wanting to increase the number of colonies I have with as little expense as possible.
Sounds good, just keep feeding.
yeah they done lost her "scent" by now. pour the feed.
Open them up and let them fly, they will not recombine now. They should have started new queen cells by now.
Pour the feed to them is right.
Any thoughts on how long to let them set before going through them?
Another thing that will hold them to their hive is the open brood...they seldom desert it.
Ed