You did what I would have done in that case. When the new split is up and running with nice amounts of new eggs and larvae, shake out the queenless hive some distance away and move the new split to the old location, and put the now empty frames in the new hive. The bees will return to the new hive and beg in -- the bees will not allow the laying workers entry.
I had a hive that was making minimal amounts of drone brood and they suffered a couple big robbing attacks, so I closed them up for a few days and bought queens. They took a new queen very nicely with no other manipulations, so either the robbing did the laying workers in or a I had a bunk drone layer that got killed off. I reduced them down to a nuc, there weren't many bees left -- should have requeened in June when the failed to make one. Anyway, I'll give them a frame or two of brood from the thriving hive this week sometime once they have a nice amount of brood going and build them back up for winter.
I had a full medium of capped honey that I moved over to the other hive, but forgot to shake out the bees first, reducing the number in the queenless hive, so I moved them to a nuc box until they get going again. I hope to get them up to a full deep before September so I can feed them back up properly and move the honey back over.
I would have just given them a frame of eggs and young brood, but my other other working hive at the time decided to supercede their queen at the same time -- I heard queens piping just when I wanted to move the eggs over, so had to wait.
Peter
I had a hive that was making minimal amounts of drone brood and they suffered a couple big robbing attacks, so I closed them up for a few days and bought queens. They took a new queen very nicely with no other manipulations, so either the robbing did the laying workers in or a I had a bunk drone layer that got killed off. I reduced them down to a nuc, there weren't many bees left -- should have requeened in June when the failed to make one. Anyway, I'll give them a frame or two of brood from the thriving hive this week sometime once they have a nice amount of brood going and build them back up for winter.
I had a full medium of capped honey that I moved over to the other hive, but forgot to shake out the bees first, reducing the number in the queenless hive, so I moved them to a nuc box until they get going again. I hope to get them up to a full deep before September so I can feed them back up properly and move the honey back over.
I would have just given them a frame of eggs and young brood, but my other other working hive at the time decided to supercede their queen at the same time -- I heard queens piping just when I wanted to move the eggs over, so had to wait.
Peter
