Swarm control split troubling me

[nietssemaj]

Last weekend I split my biggest TBH. It was full, overflowing with bee's and making queen cells.

I pulled the queen, 3 frames of brood and 2 frames of honey/pollen and dropped it into an 8 frame medium box with 3 empty frames. Reduced the entrance down to about 3 inches.

I am seeing no activity in the front of this hive at all. I don't think it was far enough away and any foragers that I took with the frames have migrated back to the original hive.

If I put my ear up to the hive there is still buzzing. If I look underneath through the SBB I can see bee's moving around. So far I am resisting the urge to poke my head into that hive but the weekend is coming up and I'm not sure if I should leave well enough alone or take a peak.

Actually with either the original (now queenless hive) or split. The original hive at least still has lots of flights going on with pollen coming in.

Should I mind my own beeswax and leave these 2 alone or check on the split and make sure it still has enough food since they aren't bringing anything in?

[rober]

i have a similar hive. i put 3 frames of brood 2 frames of honey into a nuc with a caged queen, no bees coming or going but when i checked inside there were plenty of bees working the brood & the queen was still in her cage. i'm guessing the foragers went home & left the hive to the nursery  bees. once the new brood starts hatching i'm sure all will be well. they do not need to forage. with 2 frames of honey & the pollen that was in the brood frames they should be fine.

[Kathyp]

check them both.  you won't know what's going on until you look in there.

[windfall]

I did 2 splits last year almost exactly as you described, with near identical results. I think it just takes time for them to muster a new field force. Since they have stores, their priority now is to raise the brood and rebuild. I started seeing more activity after a week or 2.

When asking around, most folks told me to stay out of the hive I left queenless for a few weeks at least, especially if I didn't have resource to supply more eggs. The risk being damaging queen cells or a queen not yet laying and making a problem just to satisfy curiosity.
With more experience and resources this year I don't know if  I would still follow that advice....but probably I would. Really, other than opening it up 3-4 days later and finding no q-cells there isn't much you can do for them other than say "yup, they are working on it". Then again if you were to find no queen cells, and have the ability to re-queen or provide eggs, that peak was mighty valuable. But you said they were already making them so....

[nietssemaj]

Was pleasantly surprised today during my inspection of the queenless side of this split.



Nice big fat mated queen laying her butt off.

The hive with the queen is building. Still on the smallish side, but I had to open the entrance up to about 4 inches due to traffic jams. Nice amount of stores as well.

[salvo]

Hi Folks, Sophomore beek here.

A very experienced beek  :brian:  explained to me that when you make a split:

1. Put the old queen in the new hive.

2. Move the old hive.

3. Put the new hive (with the old queen) in the location of the old hive. That way, many foragers from both hives go back to the old location. Yet, many bees re-orient to the new location that the old hive is now in.

He explained that this gives a super boost to the new hive, and the old hive still stays pretty strong.

I've not yet done a split. I'm not so experienced that I can speak about this from a personal perspective. I'm just relaying what another beek told me.

So far, my two hives from last year made it through. They're very strong. If I don't split both soon, I risk a swarm. I'm scared.

And, I caught a very strong swarm two weeks ago and they're doing fine.

"Famous last words."

I'm sure disaster is lurking. :thunder:

Salvo

[Joe D]

I haven't done any splits, I did catch the swarms.  When I caught  the swarm from my hive, I put them in the yard with other bees and put a couple of limbs in front
of the entrance.  Would that work on your splits, to reorient the foragers.  On one of my swarms, after a few days the old queen died, lucked out, the swarm went back home.

[BjornBee]

Hi Folks, Sophomore beek here.

A very experienced beek  :brian:  explained to me that when you make a split:

1. Put the old queen in the new hive.

2. Move the old hive.

3. Put the new hive (with the old queen) in the location of the old hive. That way, many foragers from both hives go back to the old location. Yet, many bees re-orient to the new location that the old hive is now in.

He explained that this gives a super boost to the new hive, and the old hive still stays pretty strong.

I've not yet done a split. I'm not so experienced that I can speak about this from a personal perspective. I'm just relaying what another beek told me.

So far, my two hives from last year made it through. They're very strong. If I don't split both soon, I risk a swarm. I'm scared.

And, I caught a very strong swarm two weeks ago and they're doing fine.

"Famous last words."

I'm sure disaster is lurking. :thunder:

Salvo

We are talking about splitting in the same yard.

You put the old queen in the new hive (70%), and move that. You leave behind the new hive (30%) and new queen.

You also split 70/30. You move away 70% to the new location. The field bees will find their way back to the original location, which is the 30% split new hive and new queen. The new hive (30%) will be boosted by the returning and programmed bees that will find this location. This will equal out the bees more closely to 50/50%. If you solit 50/50 you end up with 70/30. So start with 70/30 and take into account what will happen.

If you leave the old queen in the old position, more bees from the moved hive will "seek" out the queen that they know. And by moving the old queen to the new location, more bees will stay with her.