# TOp bar Swarmed, 9 Queen cells, can i split?



## Cdnbeekeeper (Apr 27, 2015)

Hey guys/gals, as the title says my hive swarmed with the original queen while i was asleep as i work night shift and they flew around 10:30am. Anyways, I was going to build another hive before this happened but what can ya do, too late. I was unable to track the swarm but I put out some swarm traps with no success. 

Now! With the remaining colony being still fairly large and in early summer I would like to split the 9 Queen cells into two hives, Keep the original strong, and move 3 cells to a new hive with 2 bars of brood and one of stores. Now, is it as easy as that? just move the bars over, shelter the entrance to make the workers re-orientate and then let it go?

The new hive location will be about 15 ft from the original.

Any info is appreciated.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

How many total bars do you have? 3 bars to the second hive seems pretty skimpy for a summer split, unless there is still a large nectar flow going on in your are. Minimum that I would do would be 5, but I'd prefer 8.


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## Cdnbeekeeper (Apr 27, 2015)

Hi Ruth, I have 17 fully drawn bars, 2 which are 80% nectar and half capped. The rest are brood. I can do 5 bars no problem. The Nectar Flow here is still very strong.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Do you think that your resources are enough for the parent hive, and the split to build up to strength before winter? you are what an hour above Buffalo first frost early October? 6 weeks or so from now? if they swarmed yesterday the queens probably were capped yesterday maybe the day before. in a week the queen will emerge. then maybe 12 more days for her to begin laying.. 3 weeks until first frost You may need every one of those hatching brood to prepare for winter in as those are summer bees and not wintering bees yet. Most of them will be gone by mid October including what brood you have by late October. two bars of honey is not muck to winter on at your latitude.


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## Cdnbeekeeper (Apr 27, 2015)

It was about 5 days since the swarm so today i did the 5 bar split, left 3 queen cells in each hive. They have about 4 inches of capped honey at the top of every bar, and a few were 80% nectar. It seems most of the worker cells that have hatched were filled with nectar. So each hive has plenty to build new comb. and we havent even hit august yet. So lots of time with the fall flowers coming. Considering the entire property which is a small private airport is all grass and clover along with other wild flowers and the bush around the property is going to be masses of golden rod I believe there is enough time for winter stores. 

The queen cells i removed had fully developed queen pupae, they will probably mature and hatch in the next 5-6 days tops. 

Thanks for the info/help, It was just a surprise to see so much nectar in the hive since the swarm.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

They are only capped for about 8 days, so if you saw capped and split 5 days later, they'll be coming out a lot sooner than 5-6 days. In fact you may have done it about as last minute as you could have. 

It's tough to get a handle on how strong a split needs to be and how many resources they need. Feeding can, to a certain extent, make up for some weakness... but this time of the year time is more of an enemy than anything. There are a finite number of brood cycles left for the queen to get the ship righted.

I don't know if you'll find this helpful at all... but here are some splits I made this year:
TBH that had recently swarmed. Split two ways both sides with queen cells, three weeks later we cut them into Langs, both had laying queens. Split was done Memorial Day. All bars in the TBH nuc are drawn combs something like half are capped brood.


Queen right split from a hive that had started some queen cells, possibility exists that it wasn't swarm cells and they were trying to supercede... not sure. I took her before they could do that. She has donated about 6-8 frames of brood in various stages to other hives this spring and she is still expanding almost filling her second deep. Done stealing brood from her now (hopefully). Split was June 4th. Three frames of mostly capped brood, two frames of open nectar.


Taranov swarm/split from a swarm I caught on Memorial Day... queen is a wild woman and her offspring are terrible at building comb, but she's a laying machine. Split was July 11th. Went back in the following Wednesday when cells were capped and cut out all but the two best ones. Still lots of bees. New queen should be laying around first week of August if all goes well. I figure I'll give her and a daughter a chance to overwinter. One frame of eggs to help anchor the "swarm" and pounds and pounds of bees. Queen is in the split in this instance. Actually probably need to add another box to this hive in the next few days as they've probably built out darn near all of the 10 frames.


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## Cdnbeekeeper (Apr 27, 2015)

That was an awesome post Jwcarlson, My queens should be emerging soon and laying hopefully around the first week of august. The hives are both doing well, but comb building has slowed. They do have a ton of stores currently so I am going to try and get them to build as much comb as possible when it warmed up and this cold front is gone. They have been kept indoors because its been cool and rainy for a few days. Ill keep this post up to date with how they are doing and hopefully I can see a new queen in a few weeks.


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## Cdnbeekeeper (Apr 27, 2015)

WOO! Heard a queen piping in the old Top bar so i checked the new split top bar and actually noticed a queen cell being deconstructed, lifted that bar out and she was right there at the side of the bar! Wickeed. Looking forward to some more bees!


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Congratulations on the new queens and good luck getting them ready for winter!


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## Cdnbeekeeper (Apr 27, 2015)

GaryG74 said:


> Congratulations on the new queens and good luck getting them ready for winter!


Thanks! I have notice a Ton of Drone activity with the new queens hatched, The workers will hopefully get the comb building bug soon since the queens will be demanding new laying area as much of the old has slight nectar storage.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Now leave them alone for a couple of weeks! Always the hardest part.

Why are your bees inside? :/


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## Cdnbeekeeper (Apr 27, 2015)

HahaHaha not inside, I just meant because of rain they haven't been able to leave the hives. I would never move the hives for no reason.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Ohhhh. Good luck! This period of time is crucial for the new queen, you really should stay out for two weeks. By then she should be laying and all should be good. Going to be rough getting them built in time for winter, though. I would consider feeding them unless you happen to have great summer/fall flows.


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## Cdnbeekeeper (Apr 27, 2015)

Well looks like they swarmed with a virgin queen now lol... I have captured the last two queen cells which have hatched so I now have virgin queens and each hive has a virgin in it. The split virgin queen killed the other two cells in that hive, but obviously the first virgin to emerge in the main hive didn't and swarmed out. What an experience this was.

If anyone is in the Ontario / barrie area and wants a virgin carniolan queen let me know I have two lol.


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