Pandemonium In the bee yard

[BrentX]

Two days ago a hive four boxes tall was delt like cards into two hives each two boxes tall. Each new hive got plently of resources, including fresh eggs.  The intent was for the queenless hive to stay in the original location, and the queen and her court to go to a place 8 feet away.  Not finding the queen, I went ahead with the split.  The next day the queen right hive was easy to identify; it was the one with foragers bringing in pollen.  Unfortunately the queen right hive was in the original hive location.  The daughter hive in the new location was the one spitting out guard bees with real attitude problems, and no apparent foragers.  This morning in the fog the hives swapped location. 

It was interesting to watch what happened through the course of the day. 

Immediatley after the move 100's of bees were crawling outside of both hives.  They were on high alert, but only dozens took flight, most of them heading with intent straight for my veil.

An hour later a number of foragers were departing the queen right hive and flying  directly to the old location, now with the queenless hive. They were admitted to the hive, although there was considerable confusion since the entrance reducer was reoriented moving the entrance a few inches to the left.  Devilish.

By mid afternoon there was a full flight pattern of foragers in front of both hives.  The retuning foragers were readily accepted at the queenless hive (now in the original location). The queen right hive in the new location was clouded with foragers orienting on the new location.  Some would fly around the side of the hive touching in several locations.  I thought they might be listening or smelling.  Eventually incoming and out going traffic got more orderly.

The queenless hive is still full of attitude.

In few days there will be an inspection for queen cells, and maybe some of those will go into nucs.

[beyondthesidewalks]

I take it you've got drones flying also.  Nice description.  I enjoyed reading it.  Good luck with the split and creating new hives with queen cells.

[jaseemtp]

Awesome! Sounds like you have it worked out

[BrentX]

A few days after my original post I dropped two more frames of eggs in the queenless hive.  This daughter hive ended up with queen cells spread across three frames.  So I split the queenless daughter hive into three new hives, each with at least 2 queen cells. Two of the new hives are presently four frame nucs, but each is packed with bees, and at least a frame of honey.  In another ten days or so I will know how well the new queens are doing.

The original mother hive is still going strong.  It seems removing all those eggs really cranked up the laying rate, and that hive is loaded with new eggs and brood.