after splitting?

[justin]

i split one of my 3 hives yesterday.found the queen on the backside of the 18th frame(disturbing the entire hive)put the top box of the brood chamber(no queen) on a diffrent bottom board,added a super of mostly drawn comb to both,added a gallon of feed to both(frame feeders)introduced a caged queen from tates honey farm in spokane to the queenless half(in a queen cage with attendants).i pushed the original hive bottom as far to the right as i could(about the width of a hive)i slid the new hive into about the spot of the old hive and added new entrance reducers to both.it seems now that about 85% of the bees found the old hive,and there are not that many bees coming and going from the new hive.so i assume that at some point i should switch places but dont know how long to wait.also the hive i split has a bottom super that is painted tractor orange and i was worried that that was why the bees were all going back to it.the new hive is yellow and i was wondering if they were can recognize the old one even though the new one is in its place.my hives are in a fenced enclosure and all sitting on a 14 ft. long glulam(wooden beam) so i am somewhat limited on moving them around.thanks, justin

[vladimir86]

I would simply trade places of both hives and equalize the brood as much as possible. This procedure should be done as soon as possible. Once you've done that, you will have equalized both hives fairly well and everything should work fine. Hold the new queen in the cage for several days (I'd say a minimum of 3), so that the foragers, which will now enter the new split which you traded places with the original hive, will get used to the new queen.

When equalizing brood, I would simply spray the bees on the brood frame with a 1:1 sugar syrup as well as the bees in the hive which you will give the frame(s) of brood to. This will greatly minimize fighting amongst the bees if they have already begun accepting the new caged queen.

Good nutrition for splits or divided colonies is essential, so the syrup you're giving them should help them while foragers bring in more nectar. Also, make sure there is AT LEAST one good frame filled with pollen (both sides), or several with only one side filled in both hives, as this will help with brood production. And as far as the paint goes, I don't think the color will have a significant impact on anything at this point.

Good luck!

[tecumseh]

although you have slightly altered the hive's locations the workers can sense in which box their queen resides. like a magnet the workers have been drawn back to their old queen.

hopefully you have enough bee in the new box to hold them for a day or so??? sometime when a box looks light, you can very slowly move seal brood (brush or bump off the attached bees or spray as vladimir suggested) to the less populated box.

[justin]

when i split the brood chamber(2 deeps) the deep that went to the new swarm was loaded with brood.probably 7 frames full,all sealed.and i am pretty sure the nurse bees are staying with the new split.what i meant to say was that 85% of the foragers were returning to the original and very few are returning to the new split.tec,i know i should have taken your advise on the 10' away thing,but there was a thread since where everybody said this works fine.i should have listened.i switched places with the hives this morning but these bees aren't stupid.since this was the middle hive of my three i could move the original hive to the outside of the configuration.maybe?or maybe i should just wait and see,my only concern is that with so few foragers the nurse bees,or whichever bees are in the hive,are not getting the pollen or nectar they need.any ideas?thanks

[Aspera]

I agree with Tecumseh which is why I typically do side by side splits by removing only the queen and a frame or two from the original colony. The mother hive, minus its queen, will need a great deal of resources anyhow as it will be a month before a laying queen is again present.

[seamuswildhoney]

I split two hives out this spring and had great success, two strong hives. But lately not so good. One split got wax moths one took to a queen from Bee Weaver from Texas but one also died, to long in the cage ( 1 week ).
so I combined the two queen less hives and went looking for a queen cell. As I was in the middle of that I had a swarm and got a queen from that, but they still don not seem to be doing so well. I have an entrance reducer on but when I feed them the "raiders of the free food" still raise havoc, dead bees all over the front of hive and even with a queen the bees in that hive seem sluggish, no enthusiasm. What am I doing wrong? What worked so well this spring is not working at all now?