I've done a cut down once before, and got the timing just about perfect. It had many side effects.
- The hive produced 3x as much honey as those around it.
- The population on that hive dropped to about 1/3 of what it was at the time of the split, 6 weeks later. New queen, lots of brood, dwindling population. This drop timed perfectly for our dearth after the flow
- The target hive that got the queen, did just fine, and built up well enough they didn't need feeding for the winter.
We plan to do more cut-downs this summer. Our main honey flow comes from the blackberries, and they bloom for about 6 weeks. Our strategy this time around is intended to catch many bullet points. It goes like this (in theory). When we see the first flower on a blackberry bush, signalling start of flow, start with a group of 5 colonies. Set out 4 nuc boxes. Divvy the smallest colony up between the nuc boxes, pinching queen along the way. Leave them sit to realize they are queenless for a couple hours. Go thru the 4 colonies left, pick up the frame with queen, and put it in one of the nuc boxes. End result, 4 cut down colonies, and 4 nucs. The cut down colonies (that really only lost the queen frame) make new queens, and lots of honey in the process. The 4 colonies have fresh new queens headed into the fall, and the nucs get started with our proven queens, that I expect them to supercede before winter comes.
The unspoken hard part of this plan, keep the bees in our boxes, and out of the trees, up until its time to do the cut-down.
This sounds great in theory, ask me in 6 months how well theory and reality met up. I'm sure reality will hand us a check along the way, but, at least we have a plan, and aren't stumbling along unsure of what we want to do. It's a strait forward plan, that sounds simple enough, to simple. Not sure where the gotchas lie, but, I'm sure we'll figure that part out too.