[Matt903]

Not trying to start another top bar versus Lang debate here, but I had something interesting happen to me. I split a few weeks ago using mated queens, the queens all came from the same graft. I did five splits from my frame hives, and five splits from my top bar hives. Each split was put in a five frame nuc box, and top bars were but in a four bar nuc box. Each had brood in all stages, and a frame or bar of pollen and honey. The queens were put in and released three days later. A week later all splits had eggs and visible confirmation of the queen. Two weeks later every top bar split had no sign of the queen, and had supercedure cells started. The frame splits were humming right along with the new queens. What the heck? Any ideas? What happened to the top bar queens. Will bees just decide to ball and kill a queen a couple of weeks after she is accepted and laying?

 

[beepro]

Could it be that the 4 bar nuc box not enough resources for them. Did you feed them after the split? How come not 5 bars for them?
You can only say that this is an isolated unfortunate incident. If the outcome is the same every year
then I would suspect the bees not like their new queens. Next time make a smaller split say 3 frames
because the bees will be more acceptable of their queen.