First Split Question

[Bubba]

Ok this is my first time splitting a colony. I had a nice strong one that is building up too fast and think they were about to swarm in a few weeks so I decided to try and make them think they already had. I went through both upper and lower deep's and made shure what I was getting. I took 5 frames total. 3 frames had caped brood and eggs with some young larva. I took 2 aditional frames with honey and pollen. I put all this in a deep with 5 frames with foundation. I am hoping they will make a queen out of the eggs my question is this. there numbers are kinda low and am wondering if I should change the position of this hive with the position of the parent hive. Also there is a good bit blooming down here now should I go ahead and give them some shugar water or wait till there is a laying queen?

[Michael Bush]

>there numbers are kinda low and am wondering if I should change the position of this hive with the position of the parent hive.

Probably a good idea. The new queen needs to be well fed. You could also shake in more bees from frames of brood.

> Also there is a good bit blooming down here now should I go ahead and give them some shugar water or wait till there is a laying queen?

If they have honey and pollen in the split, they should do fine. If there is any doubt, I'd feed, as an undernourished queen is not a good thing.

[Bubba]

they have probably 8 to 10 lbs of honey that I gave them when I split them. Probably another 1/2 frame of pollen. It is supposto get pretty cold tonight I have the entrance reduced down to probably 1.5 inches wide I hope they make it ok. I'll shake in some more tomorro will they start fighting or will they be good to go?

[WVbeekeeper]

>I took 2 aditional frames with honey and pollen. I put all this in a deep with 5 frames with foundation. I am hoping they will make a queen out of the eggs...

Be sure to go into the nuc at four days to cull any capped queen cells. these cells were made from older which recieved improper royal jelly to become an optimum queen. You do noy want an inferior queen hatching first to kill the superior queens while they are still in the cell.

>Theire numbers are kinda low and am wondering if I should change the position of this hive with the position of the parent hive.

If you do it within three days it will be ok. After three to four days honeybees will reject their former nestmates and it will be a fight at the front door. Beekeepers will switch hive positions to strengthen weaker colonies. I prefer to take a frame with capped brood and spray the attached bees with sugar syrup before shaking them into the weak colony. If enough time has passed for the new nuc to reject their former nestmates then there is a chance the returning foragers could cause the weak colony to get robbed from the parent colony. I saw it happen last year.

>Also there is a good bit blooming down here now should I go ahead and give them some shugar water or wait till there is a laying queen?

Feed them until they can start making a surplus of honey for you. If they don't get that strong this year feed them up until they begin to overwinter.

>I'll shake in some more tomorro will they start fighting or will they be good to go?

It depends on how long it has been since you made the nuc. It never hurts to use some masking syrup when combining colonies or adding bees to a weak colony.

For info on masking syrup check out Recipes for Beekeepers .