50/50 Split

[mherndon]

Well, I've been preparing for this all Spring and things just didn't go as planned.  I had a very strong hive starting in February.  I reversed boxes a couple of times and the bees were really booming.  I was able to mark the queen in early March and have seen her every inspection since then.  Yesterday, I planned on going in and finding the queen and then do a split to simulate a swarm and move the hive with the old queen to another location.  I wanted to have the original have make their own queen.  I have doubled the brood area to do this; two deeps and two medium boxes were all brood area full of bees.  I went in to find my queen and I think may have waited too late.  I could not find the queen, I did find a capped swarm cell and about three uncapped swarm cells with a lot of white royal jelly.  I think they may have already swarmed, but the number of bees was tremendous.  I called a friend where I got the bees and he recommended doing a 50/50 split and to make sure I had swarm cells in both hives just in case they had already swarmed.  I did not find any small eggs, so I think the queen hadn't laid any eggs for 3-5 days.  The youngest larvae was just starting to curl in the bottom of the cell, with several that filled the cell bottom. I put 1 deep and 1 medium to each hive.  I also started another box of foundation on top of each for them to build on.  I really had the bees stirred up before I finished, but got them in two different hives.  What should I have done different if anything?  I just wish I had found the queen.  I would have felt a lot better knowing they hadn't swarmed, and they possibly haven't, but will.

[doak]

Those queen cells that are not capped are unfinished queen/swarm cells.
I have just got through splitting two colonies like this.
Just make sure and get a capped queen cell in both.
If you keep the new split close, shake off a couple extra frames of bees into the new split.
This will help make up for the returning bees to the old location.
I have a swarm 25 ft up a sweet gum tree because of not taking care of business sooner.
They swarmed one day and went back, I split the next day, but they swarmed today.
:)doak

[mherndon]

Thanks, Doak





I have the hives next to each other.  I will move some frames over like you said.  I just saw one capped queen cell though.  I hope the others will be finished by the bees is a few days. 

Mark