# Think they'll make it?



## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

If the robbing has stopped, I think they will make it. At some point you may have no choice to feed or add a frame from a different hive. If you gave them a frame or two and they had good honey bands above the brood areas still after the robbing, I bet they do ok.
I am new though. 
Cheers'
gww


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

FL_Ranger said:


> So I made a split from my best hive last week. I had wanted to do the regular fly-back method, but after searching through the entire hive TWICE, I absolutely could not find the queen,...........
> 
> And as you would expect, when I checked the parent hive yesterday, the queen was on the first frame I looked at. Typical.


Let me join your club.
I went through the darn thing *three times* yesterday and could not find that queen for the life of me.
This is after emergency splitting the hive 3 ways with the fly-back being the goal.
Pretty darn sure queen was not left in the old site (harder to miss since I did not leave them many frames).
She was probably in that split with the freshest eggs but the bees had enough of me after an hour, and insisted I just leave.

In the end, I just distributed the QCs across all the three hives to be sure everyone has a queen in making and will let it all shake out. At least, I am pretty sure I messed up their swarming away while I am camping with the kids 4 hour drive away.

One question though - why split so late in Florida?

OK, I am in WI and was trying to hold out until July before brood-break splitting.
Our main flow is starting now and robbing not a major concern. 
But splitting in Floriday now, during the dearth (I assume?) is asking for trouble.

Also, granted, this is Florida and no winter to speak of - I am not even worried, since the cluster size is not terribly critical.
Of course they will make it. Feed and they will make it.
FYI - I only feed under the lid (never in the open) and robbing is not a typical concern this way.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

The main issue is the parent hive robbing them out, you will have to keep an eye on it, even when adding frames of honey back.


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## FL_Ranger (May 28, 2016)

GregV said:


> Let me join your club.
> I went through the darn thing *three times* yesterday and could not find that queen for the life of me.
> This is after emergency splitting the hive 3 ways with the fly-back being the goal.
> Pretty darn sure queen was not left in the old site (harder to miss since I did not leave them many frames).
> ...


Thanks for the responses. To answer your question, definitely not my preferred time to attempt a split, but it was kind of an experiment + me getting greedy. There were still bees coming and going from the nuc today, so maybe they'll pull through. I'll know for sure in another week or two.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Purchase a moving/robbing screen and install it immediately. Use a hive top feeder to replace what was robbed out. I would bet with proper care, you can make splits most of the year where you are. I am still making splits here in Richmond and our flow is over too. Just came back from the store with 30# of sugar, a week's supply at best.


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