# Rookie split question



## Kong

Forgot to say these are top bar hives.


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## AR1

Is the brood in the old hive all drone brood?


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## Kong

AR1 said:


> Is the brood in the old hive all drone brood?


I will need to check tomorrow but I don't think so. If it is all or mostly drone brood what does that indicate?


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## AR1

If it's all drone brood you probably lost the queen and have a laying worker problem. Maybe when you split the hive the queen ended up in the other half, and they didn't successfully make a new queen in the declining hive. 

Just a thought. Hopefully someone more experienced than me will chime in.


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## eltalia

Kong said:


> Forgot to say these are top bar hives.


G'day.
If possible upload pix of selective brood frames to 
save a thousand words, as they say 
Attached hopefully is an inline image of the degree of resolution and contrast
which could offer some sufficient insight in comment.

To get your pix, remove all bees and find suitable lighting for best results.

Cheers.

Bill


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## Tenbears

Pics will Surely help. And I am sure beekeepers with experience that Best Mine can tell you exactly what to do from just a few. But be sure to explain EXACTLY what is going on as they will make their determination or a WAG. on what you tell them. 

There are many possibilities here. Since we do not have the dates at our disposal it is imposable to do the bee math and determine the more likely probability. 

It could be a AR1 stated and you moved the queen over to the split. Depending on when in May this split was done. It could be that the parent hive has only recently completed the queening/breeding process and the queen is just getting settled in. Figure 30 days from the split and that would give you the time to develop breed and begin to lay. So basically if the split was done in late May the queen has only been laying since late June. 

The other alternative is as AR1 stated and a queenless situation has occurred. I sort of lean toward the former as removing the queen with the split would have still left eggs in the parent hive. A queenless hive would almost immediately draw emergency supersedure queens.

We must consider that any hive that has gone queenless for a period is going to go through a cycle of brood hatching out and leaving the hive brood less . All the brood present when the hive went queenless would be gone in 24 days. It would take another 21 days before the first worker eggs laid will hatch resulting in a decline in adult bees. 

Another possibility: (Again without seeing the cells it is difficult to determine weather these may be swarm or supersedure cells) Is that they were swarm cells and the split did not dissuade the swarm instinct. So while you were away the parent swarmed and you are now seeing the decline of aged bees after the post swarm brood break. In any event As long as you have worker brood in both hives at this point. I would not be concerned.


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## Kong

Thank you everyone for your thoughts. 
Dates: Split hive on May 30th. Arrived home from business trip June 18th so probably looked at the hives on June 20th and that's when they both looked great. 
Brood: As far as I can see there is worker brood at the moment and no drone brood. I can see large larvae and very small larvae so I guess the queen is somewhere laying but I didn't see her today when I went through every bar. I have about 10 bars that look similar to the ones in the photos, all with worker brood, more or less in the center of the comb. I have about 6-8 bars with capped and uncapped honey and pollen.
Queen cells: After reading more I realize the queen cells were definitely swarm cells because they are on the side of the comb. 

Hypothesis: Hive swarmed without me realizing a week or so ago, after I had got home. Does that seem reasonable? If so, do I just need to wait this out and the hive will rebuild?

Thanks again for your thoughts and expertise.


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## eltalia

Kong said:


> (edit)
> Brood: As far as I can see there is worker brood at the moment and no drone brood. I can see large larvae and very small larvae so I guess the queen is somewhere laying but I didn't see her today when I went through every bar.
> (edit)


...mmmmmm
From those pix and the story?
Give it a few days for those smaller wrigglers to be capped off and go have another inspection of all frames.
IF those caps are then drone caps you might seek further help on correcting aTBH laying worker colony.
My own knowledge on TBH management being in development stage
I would be hesitant to advise a way forward for a LW colony in a TBH


Cheers.

Bill


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## Tenbears

Your Hypothesis is well within reason. The fact that you have brood in all larval stages would indicate that there was a queen there 4 days ago. It appears as there are eggs in some of the cells in the pic, But could be just a glint. Since you have brood young brood in a good pattern surrounding the capped brood odds are good you have a queen. Although laying workers will lay in worker cells they rarely lay such a prolific pattern!
My guess is that you will be fine and the bee numbers will pick up once that capped brood begins to hatch. Let us know how it works out!


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## Kong

Sigh. Still confused. It seems that the brood from the previous photos (five days earlier) has mostly been capped and it is worker brood. I couldn't really see any signs of eggs or small larvae when I was out there in the sun with my bee hat on. Now that I can zoom in on the photo it looks like there are some eggs and smaller larvae but it sure isn't much. I went through every comb and didn't see the queen but I rarely do even when I know there is one.


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## Branman

I don't think anything seems that strange. I agree with Tenbears, either you took the queen by accident into the new split or the original hive swarmed even after the split. Either way, the original hive had to wait for a new queen to hatch and get mated to start laying again. Personally I think you missed some QCs and they swarmed, just wait and they'll build back up.


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