Trying to time a split
Comming out of my first winter in Georgia. I have three hives that have two deep brood boxes on them. I am wanting to split the hives for swarm control and to expand the number of hives. I went into to one of them today to inspect. I went through each frame looking for swarm cells. I did see the queen and confined her into a queen catcher to protect her. The hive was full of bees in both boxes. Each deep box had honey, some pollen and about 4-5 frames of brood in different stages. The frames with brood had 50% to 70% brood on them with honey in the arches. Burr comb was noted on the bottom of the frames. When I took the top box off, the burr comb tore due to being attached to the top of the frames in the bottom box. This burr comb appeared to be full of nearly emerged drones. They of course are now dead due to tearing of the comb. Many other capped drones cells were noted on several frames and drones could be seen in the hive. I noticed some drones leaving the hive a few days ago. I removed the burr comb and put the hive back together. Weather changed so I did not inspect the other two. I did not see any swarm cells. I was waiting to see swarm cells to do the split. Should I just go ahead with the split and let them make the new queen or wait for for a swarm cell to be capped? Weather has been in the mid 60s and will be in upper 60s to low 70s this week. I have read reports on bee source of a swarm very near to me. I have also read Michael bush's site on the splits. I am just unclear as to go ahead or wait for the swarm cell to be produced. I am thinking of going ahead and doing it tomorrow but, I do not want to mess up. Thanks for your responses!
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