Just split my first hive... ?'s

[BigB]

This is my first year and I had one nuc that I felt was doing pretty good. Well I received a queen two days ago and transfered four frames of honey and brood over too the new hive. I let them sit over night w/ out a queen then put the queen cage into the hive. I couldn't get her attendants out, is there a significant chance this will cause them to not accept her? The bees very quickly gathered around her, and didn't look agitated. I am a little worried about how many bees are out front of the hive. I am worried about the old hive robbing the new. I reduced the entrance but how can you tell if robbing is occurring? Also one last question, while I was taking out the 4 frames from my old colony I noticed on some of the comb attaching the bottom super to the top there was a good amount of pupa in the ripped burr comb. I once read that this is a sign of improper bee space; is this possible? I thought they were standard deep hive bodies. I guess I'm just not very confident yet so I'm just hoping to not have done some major damage and hope to still get some honey from the first hive (they had just started to pull out the medium super I had put on). Thanks for any help! :)

[BjornBee]

Welcome to Beesource.

The queen should be ok. Just let them eat through the candy. If she is not released in three or four days, pull the cork on the non-candy side and let her walk out.

Make sure you check the nuc for bees numbers. A certain amount will find their way back to the original hive. You could always make the split stronger by swapping the locations. Place the split where the original colony is and vice-versa.

You will never get the bee space proper as long as you buy commercially. ;) Its no big deal. All hives have some burr here and there. You could measure the space between the top of the frame of the bottom box, and the bottom frame of the top box and cut them down. But most don't.

When you rip some drone comb open, use it as an opportunity to do some mite surveying.