# Cut Down Split-Back Filled Brood Nest



## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

C'mon Bush! I was under the impression you were a pro at this...Now I have to rethink everything I thought I new. :s

I'm glad you posted this, as I was thinking about doing the same thing. That is if by a "cut-down" split you mean just taking half the hive to a new box??? 

As you said, the queen should be out sometime soon. Perhaps since they know she is coming, they are just stockpiling nectar as they normally would. Once she is established and "claims" her broodnest (just as our wives claim our houses ) they will move the nectar out of the way. From what I've read, the worst you'll have to do is just take those bars of nectar and move them to the back of the hive so they can build back brood comb.

Help me out here, how did you go about making the split? I just posted a thread on it, proposing what I was planning on doing. I'd like to do it as early as this weekend if all looks well in the donor hive. Is it really just as simple as grabbing a few bars and putting them in another TBH?


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## Keefis (May 4, 2012)

hey dont forget about me! I am looking to split my hive too. the sooner the better. I have a 4 footer thats 75% full. lots of worker brood very little stores though. can i split if each hive has a feeder???


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## Bush_84 (Jan 9, 2011)

FYI I just want to mention that I am not michael bush. Some confuse me for him due to the bush in my name. This is my second year keeping bees.

Actually Michael bush has a great section on splitting. A cut down split is removing the queen a couple of weeks before the main flow. This would allow the nurse bees to "graduate" to foragers much faster due to lack of brood to care for. I seemed to have done it about a week before basswood blossoms. Now the blackberry has started and the raspberry is almost here. These are big in my area. So I was just a bit early, but I had a time constraint.

A cut down split is basically making a nuc. You take the queen plus a few combs and transfer them over. I took the comb with the queen plus combs with a decent mix of capped brood, pollen, and honey. Four total. I also fed. I found that it helps to have new comb with eggs/young larvae. The bees easily mold that to make queen cells. I actually did this accidentally by adding four empty bars in the brood nest a week or two prior to finding all thoe queen cups. 

I will simply recheck on things after a bit and see how they are faring, I suspect you are right that the bees will likely shift things around. I will check in on them next week to see if there is any signs of a queen. If nothing another check in a week would be my plan plus considering adding open brood to avoid a laying worker.


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

This is all part of the usual swarm process. Backfilling happens before queen cells are built. So when the old queen leaves with the swarm and there's no new foragers being raised, there are the resources available for the bees to raise new brood, when the new queen starts laying. They will quickly make room for the new queen to lay once she starts laying.

Also, make sure you only have 2 queen cells! (In case one fails to emerge.) Cull the smaller queen cells. Otherwise they could swarm on you, as this is mimicking a swarm situation where the old queen has already left. 

Matthew Davey


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

Bush_84 said:


> FYI I just want to mention that I am not michael bush. Some confuse me for him due to the bush in my name. This is my second year keeping bees.


Haha, I was one of those people. All apologies. 

OK, so in a cut-down split, the queen goes to the new hive...? I suppose that is a sensible enough measure. That insures that there are eggs in the right range to raise a new queen in the old hive, rather than risk it trying to transfer brood comb that you think is in the right range. Unless she has stopped laying for some reason, you are guaranteed to have 1-3 day old eggs in the original hive, and your laying queen will move right on over to the new box and take up where she left off. That may actually be a more beneficial way to make a split. I suppose it does stall the donor hive's progress, but it also accelerates the new hive's progress.

I guess I'm going to have to get better at spotting the queen. My current queen is marked, but if I make a split and they raise one I don't know what I'll do! Guess I'll actually have to train my eyes to spot her. Perhaps I'll invest in some marking equipment.


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## Bush_84 (Jan 9, 2011)

If they were going to swarm, they would have done it by now as the queens were on schedule to emerge earlier this week. I have been working 12s all week so I would have no idea if they swarmed until I look next week, but I believe my bait hives are empty...which doesn't mean anything other than they are empty.


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## Keefis (May 4, 2012)

bush 84 so you split 2 weeks ago...? 
how many bars did you move over?
approximately how many total bars in your original hive?

I have 30 bar hive 20+ bars are drawn out, filled with brood. I want to split asap of course.

did you do anything special to the new hive to aid in the process?


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## Bush_84 (Jan 9, 2011)

This coming Monday will be 3 weeks ago. The initial split I moved over four total combs. One was simply the comb with the queen. The other 3 were the combs with the most sealed brood. One had a lot of capped brood and pollen. I also gave it two shakes of bees. 

The second split I made after the queen cells were capped, but before the queens emerged. I made this one a bit smaller and wish I had added more shakes of bees, but so far I still have bees covering the comb. 

I would have to go back out there to count how many combs they have. They were getting sort of close to a comb on every bar of a 4 ft TBH that's larger dimensions compared to Phil Chandler's hive. About 2/3rds was plump full with some empty comb on the far side. 

I would say that there are a few things to make sure you get a good split. 

1. Make sure they either have a queen or a queen cell. That will ensure they have the best chance.
2. Make sure you either give them some honey or feed them.
3. Make sure they have pollen.
4. I like to use capped brood (note this is the first time I have split a hive). The bees will emerge and give an instant boost to the population.

The rest depends on your goals. I really like the idea of a cut down split as I get more hives and increased honey production during my main flow. They will have a lag in population, but as of now they have more uncapped nectar in the hive than I have ever seen. So I am pleased with my situation.

One neat trick that I will surely do again is add empty bars 2 weeks prior to removing the queen. The bees will extend this comb out and the queen will fill it with eggs. The new comb is easily moldable by the bees and it's very easy for them to make queen cells out of this type of comb. Nearly all of my queen cells came from these combs. They were all at the edges of the comb and almost none at the face of the comb. The bees had made quite a few queen cups, but I suspect they were all empty and they raised a queen from the right aged larvae they had laying around. 

I hope that answers your questions. Remember I am a 2nd year beek, but I hope this helps.


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## Keefis (May 4, 2012)

ok so 1 question more(for now) 
the second split you referred to... was that splitting the queenless donor colony to get multiple queens that live upon hatching?(2 nucs basically) or am I out in left field?


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## Bush_84 (Jan 9, 2011)

The second split came from the original colony which was queenless. This reduces their chances of swarming, which I believe was their original intent and it gives me a backup. If one colony doesn't get a queen up and running I can combine. It wasn't an even split. I just brought enough over to keep the new hive going.

Edit-Saw the queen in my second split today. I also saw my original queen in the first split. The main colony is so large that I wasn't looking hard, but didn't find her. I assume there's a virgin in there somewhere.


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

Bush_84: It seems like you are having great success. I applaud you. I also hope the success keeps up, because I just performed the same sort of split on my TBH today. I suppose I could whip together a third hive and do the second split as you mentioned once I get a few queen cells going. I don't know if my wife will let me do that much just yet. She is still skeptical that I am getting into all this too fast, but I just can't seem to get enough! I hate to stand idle and miss an opportunity to grow my numbers. I have a lot of people waiting for my honey!


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## Bush_84 (Jan 9, 2011)

So far so good. I saw the queen in the second split last week. There aren't a lot of bees coming and going in that hive, but they are still chugging along. Hopefully the queen gets going soon.

The fist split is building comb and becoming more and more active. This hive has the original queen.

The original hive still has a ton of honey and nectar in the hive. I saw a ton of pollen coming in the other day. No signs of brood, but I suspect they are responding to a virgin queen. Getting pollen ready for upcoming brood, but I have yet to see her. There has also been an influx of drones in the first two combs of the hives, which I saw last year with the presence of a virgin queen. I have no idea where they will move all that honey to. They have plenty of partial combs in the brood nest. So they have some room to expand yet. I guess they will just have to get going on at comb building. Will update again once I see evidence of laying queens.


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

Speaking of cut back split evidence, I just checked on my girls. The donor hive is currently queenless. Peaking in the hive I counted 7 queen cups on the end of two bars. They have 16 bars, so I can only imagine how many more are around back.

On the new hive the original queen is still ruling almost all of the foragers from the original hive. They are working feverishly to pull new comb. I attempted to fix some stored comb I had back to a bar and returned it to them. Immediately they filled it with nectar instead of eggs, and the weak wax/gluing job that I did failed, so now I have two nectar filled combs laying on the hive floor. I wonder if any of the combs in the original hive have hatched out and could be moved into the new hive. They really need the space! 

But overall things look really good!


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

I did cut down splits for the first time ever this year and the increase in honey production is tremendous if you can keep them from swarming, which was a big issue for me. I did not remove any queen cells that the bees constructed, so the first queen out took off with a swarm in a few of my hives. Fortunately, I captured all the swarms. I think that culling all but one queen cell would have been better to do. The cut downs that did not swarm are producing honey faster than any hive I have ever had in my life. Having all drawn honey comb for the medium supers certainly helps too, they fill those things up faster than you can believe. I honestly don't know why more beekeepers don't use cut downs regularly. John


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## Bush_84 (Jan 9, 2011)

So today was my free day to check up on progress. All three hives have laying queens! I saw 2/3 of them. Actually the queen I didn't see was the queen in the small split, but I am pretty sure that I saw eggs (bad lighting). That is also the hive that I saw the queen last time. So I am confident that all hives should have queens. There is still a fair amount of nectar/honey in the original hive, but I can tell that they've consumed some once they have ramped up brood rearing again. The weather here hasn't been great either. A lot of rain and clouds, but as of Thursday that should improve. So as of now I'll call this a success!


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## Keefis (May 4, 2012)

C'mon Bush84...
You know you're bragging!!
But really though, congrats!..
I am almost ready to split mine...
Just making a few finishing touches on the new 5 foot hive.(their new home)
I will post soon when it happens..Keep on the lookout for me!!
thanks


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

My cutback appears to be doing well also. The queenless hive has dozens of queen cells built, so I'll have to do some thinning. As is, I'm going to double split it again, resulting in 3 5-frame nucs. I'm going to attempt to cut out as many queens as possible and actually hand them off to a fellow beek down here that needs a few queens. I'd rather do that then kill them. But my hive that has the queen is absolutely booming, and pulling comb rapidly.

I had another related question about doing splits and helping them along. I know that frames of capped brood can be moved between hives to help a queenless hive get brood. Does it have to be capped brood or could a frame of eggs be moved? I was thinking, since I made the split, a lot of the brood has hatched out in the queenless hives, resulting in a lot of open comb. I was wondering if I could stick these in the queen-right hive, have her lay them full of eggs, and then give them back to the queenless nucs to help boost population. I'm just worried about how much more population I'll lose in the time that it takes my new queens to get mated and start laying. If I can help fill that space with some young bees I really think it would help the nucs to ramp up once the queens hatch. I know it will possibly slow the progress of the queen-right hive, but I'm not worried about that hive since I know the queen is great.

So again, can a frame of eggs be transferred, or will the bees reject it because it may not smell like them? Then again it may since it comes from the last queen they knew.:scratch: Can it be eggs, larva, or does it have to be capped brood for the sharing to be successful? If I can do it with eggs, then tomorrow I will make the final splits, assuring there are two queen cells in each nuc. At the same time I will put three bars of open comb into the queen-right hive and let her lay in it for 1-2 days, then transfer one back to each queenless nuc. I know it's extra work, but really not much, if the success factor is boosted significantly. I suppose I will also have to make sure and brush off all the bees that will be on it from the queen-right hive so it doesn't cause fighting in the nucs.

Thoughts?


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## Bush_84 (Jan 9, 2011)

You can transfer over a comb of eggs if you wish. The reason I moved capped brood over is that they will hatch sooner giving the bees a quick boost. One downside to transfering over a comb of eggs is that the bees at the new hive will have to tend to them, which means resources. Once they are capped, all they have to do is keep them warm.


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

Well the idea is the same either way I guess. Basically the queen in the new hive has very little space to lay, and the nucs will benefit from the donor eggs/larva. I suppose I could pull frames of capped brood from the queenright hive and leave behind the empty bars for the queen to lay in. That may actually be the better and faster option. I just wasn't sure if it had to be capped brood or if they would accept eggs/larva. Thanks Bush.


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## Bush_84 (Jan 9, 2011)

One thing I should say is that moving over capped brood is the impact on mite loads. I had to treat my nucs with hopguard as my nucs started showing deformed wings, but are looking mich better after treatment.


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

Maybe I'm a fool, but I have yet to see Varroa in my hives. I do have SHB, but they fly so I can't really keep them away. I got my bees from BeeWeaver, and they are on the list for Varroa resistance. I know several others that have BeeWeaver queens and don't see varroa either.


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

Hey gang, just wanted to give my update. Last night I went through and did a double split off of my queenless hive, moving a few queen cells into each new nuc. So now instead of one queenless hive, I have three queenless nucs, with queens set to hatch in two days. Talk about a nerve racking experience! Working the bees was not a problem, but the weather was. Yesterday we had what Houston calls "scattered showers", which basically means the weather shows no distinct pattern at all, other than some moisture coming in from the gulf. But a rain shower can pop up anywhere, anytime with little to no warning, and just as fast as it is here, it's gone. So I watched the radar all day, and observed as the much needed rain just seemed to jump right around my house. Where I work, 20 miles from home, we had a pop-up storm that cut visibility down to about 50 yards. Through the course of the day at home, I picked up 15/100"

Anyway, so when I got home, the radar was clear, so I went for it! I wasn't worried too much about the crummy weather having the foragers home, because when I made my split, all the foragers moved to the new hive, and the queenless hive really didn't have any to speak of. So I started working, and had just finished the first nuc, when it started raining. Thankfully not a downpour, but just enough rain to make me wonder if I should proceed. So I ran around frantically for a while trying to find something I could rig up for a canopy over my work area, of course to no avail. Alas I decided to just grind it out. If I was just moving bars it wouldn't have been a big issue. But I was having to cut off queen cells, and also trim the comb down a little to fit the new boxes. Indeed, I screwed and and built my new hive boxes slightly smaller than the old ones.:s It dawned on me this morning what the problem was. 

Anyway, I ended up taking one bar at a time, and running it over to my planting shed, where I did the comb work on the bench, and then ran it back to the new nuc boxes. I must say, my bees are extremely tolerant of my stupid mistakes. They were pretty fussy by the end, and rightly so. I had two or three try to sting my gloves, but thankfully the leather did its job. In the end, everything got buttoned up, and I'm hoping for the greater good. I also managed to cut out a dozen queen cells that I am delivering to a friend at work today. I've never transported capped queen before, but I suppose if they can go through the mail, then they can certainly go with me to work one day. I hope they don't die in transit, but I guess if so, they're no worse off than if I had just killed them at home.

Wish me luck!


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## ddb123 (Jun 20, 2012)

Update?


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

Oh yeah, great news! I checked the nucs yesterday and found mostly good results. One hive already has a queen laying (spotted the eggs and the queen), another had a queen ruling, but I didn't see eggs yet. Unfortunately the third appears queenless. It's funny how just the activity in the have can be an indicator of queen presence. I gave them a bar from another hive with eggs/larva to see if they will try to raise a new queen. It could be that they do have a queen and she just hasn't mated yet and I didn't see her. But their attitude, lazy and low moral, indicates to me a hive depressed and queenless. All the other hives were very active. 

I'll try to update as things progress.


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## Keefis (May 4, 2012)

Tom, what do you mean Queen ruling? 
I get the idea, but what evidence or behavior coincides with that.?
Are the worker bees not agitated like they normally ore when queenless?
Do they know that normalcy is just around the corner for them?


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

I guess I should have explained (but so often I say too much on here). What I meant by "queen ruling" was simply that I saw a queen in the hive, and she was not apparently in any sort of harm. She was running about on the comb, beating her wings as if to drum up excitement, and possibly better distribute her pheromones. Perhaps it was a victory dance after killing another queen, I don't know. But it's funny, the only reason I spotter her was because of her activity. I was looking for eggs, and she went bouncing across the comb right in front of me. Maybe she just wanted to introduce herself.

As for the bees not being agitated for being queenless, that one too has stumped me. Last fall I "rescued" a queenless swarm from a lady's backyard. At the time, it was my first actual handling of bees, but from what I had read, they demonstrated queenless behavior. They appeared to go about aimlessly, often in two or more semi-groups of bees rather than on mass, and repeatedly I found them all crawling about on the ground, and refusing to stay in the hive that I tried to give them. But as for activity, they were constantly fanning, and yes, were more aggressive (a real problem since I didn't have a suit yet).

What I've seen from my three nucs now goes like this: To begin with, the two with queens have a lot more bees. Now there has not been time for the new queens to have raised any of their own brood, so the only way they can have more is if they picked up foragers from the main hive. Bees will tend to drift as we all know, and a lost bee will seek out a hive based on traces of a queen scent, not always their own, but just seeking a queen in general. I wish I could put up a visual on here, but I don't have pictures anyway. I'll link my YouTube page so you guys can at least see the layout to help understand how drifting would be so easy. So on first peak into the nucs through the window, I noticed the first (currently thought queenless) was very low in numbers, to the point that one or two bars of comb only had a few bees crawling around on it. This could become problem fast if SHB or WM find their way in. In the next two, I peaked in, and noticed very good numbers of bees, with a minimum of every bar of comb covered, as well as extra bees crawling around in the back of the hive. These two with better numbers were later confirmed to have queens. 

But back to activity, the one that I did not confirm a queen in, seemed lazy and lethargic, as if they were depressed that they didn't have a queen. It could have been that there were just so few bees that things seemed less active. But I wasn't really met by any guards or scouts like one would expect in a stronger hive. It really has me stumped why they are not acting like the bunch of queenless bees that I had last fall. It's for that reason, that I am still speculating that they may have a queen, and that I just didn't spot her. Upon not spotting the queen, I traded an empty bar of comb from the queenless hive to the original hive with my marked queen, the trade was for a bar of eggs/larva from the strong hive back to the suspected queenless hive. The goal is that the bees will tell me whether or not they have a queen. If they don't, they should build some queen cells on these fertilized eggs. So far I have not spotted any queen cups since Thursday, but I have not actually opened the hive, so they could be around back where I can't see. If they do have a queen, then the bees should just raise up these eggs normally. Perhaps I'll check tonight to be sure. I want to know where I stand before I leave town for 5 days on vacation. 

See, now I went and said too much again. Did I answer the question? Did I spark more? :scratch:


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## Keefis (May 4, 2012)

About answering and sparking more questions...YES and YES
About the ruling Queen..Is she just not mated yet? 
I will update you on my split tonight as I will be able to check my Queen cups... I had record high temps followed by T'storms galore. Hopefully it had no ill effects. It actually blew the roof off of the new Hive and I had to go out in the middle of the lightening to fix it,...Adrenaline rush!!


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

You're reading into that "ruling" queen too much. There is nothing that she has or hasn't done that defines her as ruling. I guess I should have called her a reigning queen, being the one that survived all the others. I assume she was not yet mated, or if she was, not yet laying. I think the way she was running about on the comb, she was drumming up support from the other bees, letting them know she was there and making sure they joined her. After all, before she hatched, the bees had no loyalty to any queen. So upon hatching, after killing all the other queens, the first order of business is to make sure the hive knows she is around so they don't keep raising more queens. 
There is the chance that she was already mated and just hadn't started laying yet. I plan to check tonight to see if she is laying, and to see if the #3 nuc has started a second effort to raise a queen, or if they have one that I just didn't find last time.

So again, I retract having called that queen a "ruling" queen. All I meant by that was that I saw a queen in the hive.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The concept of a cut down split is to compress the hive to get the bees up in the supers, cause early recruitment of nurse bees and therefore get a better crop of honey from the old location. If they are raising a queen, they will always backfill the brood nest until she is ready to lay. Then they quickly move it out of her way. This is part of the process in a Langstroth that causes comb to be drawn quickly and therefore get soft white comb honey. There is no way really to compress the hive in a top bar hive, but you could get the early recruitment part.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Tom Brueggen said:


> ...snip... I assume she was not yet mated, or if she was, not yet laying. I think the way she was running about on the comb, she was drumming up support from the other bees, letting them know she was there and making sure they joined her. After all, before she hatched, the bees had no loyalty to any queen. So upon hatching, after killing all the other queens, the first order of business is to make sure the hive knows she is around so they don't keep raising more queens. ...snip...


Tom, it may be helpful to contrast the way a 'virgin' queen moves compared to a 'laying' queen. I'm sure of what you saw today, and it is exciting! I saw a queen today, from an 11 JUN split, who's cell hatched eight days ago. She should be in the process of orientation/mating flights the past couple of days, and may be laying later this week. 

She covered the length of a frame in about 10 seconds. Not stopping to look for empty cells and not creating a circle of attending bees as she went. She was slightly smaller than I expect her to be once she has matured. After her mating flights conclude, and, given some time, she will walk slowly on the frame, inspecting empty cells, depositing eggs and reexamining cells with eggs already in them. The tempo is greatly slowed when she is laying. The workers make a circle around the queen and attend to her hand and foot. Should you see a queen running on the combs again after her maturitation, it is not a good sign. 

I think you are accurate Tom, when you point out that the presence of a queen, mated or not, is something the bees already know, and in our cases, accept. 

P.S. Dan, both hives from the split I did on 11 JUN have packed nectar away too, I simply added drawn comb to the edge of the old brood combs and added a super.


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## Bush_84 (Jan 9, 2011)

Since this topic is still active I will give an update. So far I still seem to have 3 laying queens out of it all. However the small split that I made seems to be in the middle of replacing her. The queen in the original colony seems to be sticking. If the small split doesn't build up I may just combine them with the smaller TBH (the one with the original queen).


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

I just checked in on my hives and have great news! Of my original splits, two got a queen, and the third I guess the queen didn't make it home after mating. So back then I gave them a new bar of comb with eggs to give them a second chance. I had noted at least one queen cell a few days later. Well tonight, I cracked open that hive, and discovered that there had actually been raised about 4-5 queen cells. They were all hatched out. I didn't spot any eggs, so I searched the comb, and lo and behold, spotted a virgin queen running around! She stood out for two notable reasons. One is how she was scrambling about on the comb. The other more biological detail, is that while still small, her abdomen has not stripes on it, and has more of a pointed shape to it. I'll check back in a week or so to see if there are any eggs. What's funny is how much more activity this hive had. Since hatching queens, the hive has boomed. Much like yours did, I think this hive (first in a line of four) has picked up a lot of foragers drawn in to that new queen scent. 

Of the other two splits, two weeks ago, they both had queens, but one was not yet laying. Upon opening the hive tonight, at first I was scared due to very little activity. No bees out buzzing around, and very little response to my opening the hive. Then I spotted capped brood. There is no way that could be from back when I first made the split. Looking closer I spotted lots of larva. I didn't look close enough for eggs, as I was satisfied with seeing the larva. But I did see the queen. There was a lot of capped brood. This is the hive that I told you I first put the feeder on, and they packed it all in since the queen wasn't laying yet. I suppose they benefited from that now since they had plenty of food to start raising brood with. Perhaps I'll move the feeder back to them tomorrow, just because I'm so happy with them! A little treat! 

So as it stands, I have 3 hives at 100% success, and the last split (queen not yet mated) I'm calling 80%, risking that she might not get back from mating.


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## Bush_84 (Jan 9, 2011)

Hate to grave dig a bit, but I have a question about one of these hives. 

The second split hasn't done so well. They had a queen and she even started laying a bit. Then poof...gone. The only thing I could figure is that they didn't like her and offed her before a replacement was ready. She looked a bit small and her laying pattern was terrible. So now they have 2 small queen cells and their population has dwindled terribly. They have some feed on, but I am figuring that they are a lost cause. 

So my question is about combining. I plan on combining them with the first split with the original queen. Since this second split is queenless do I just pinch the cells and put them in or do I have to do the newspaper method? I recall reading that since they are queenless they don't have a scent thus no need to use the newspaper, but I wanted to ask first.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

I have a hive like this and I call it Frankenhive. I have given it a virgin, given it queen cells, given it frames of brood. All seem to do well for a few weeks and then poof, nothing. I just put a Strachan NWC queen in a queen cage and gonna let them figure it out. Usually prefer a push in introduction cage but my frustration with this hive is at an all time high and I am no longer giving them the effort I used to. Perhaps I am just lazy.

I have no experience with TBH so take this with a grain of salt. If you have frames of bees that have been queenless I personally would feel fine about just dropping them in another hive. Since you are in Minn. you time to let them raise a new queen is rapidly dissapearing. I wouldn't even begin to describe how to do a newspaper combine in a TBH but imagine someone knows how to do it. If it is a viable method then try that. When I newspaper combine I use one sheet and no slits and the bees chew it and drag it all out of the hive within 24 hours. The good part is everyone loves each other when it is done. That being said I never have fear of dropping frames from one hive into another. They just seem to figure it out.


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## Tom Brueggen (Aug 10, 2011)

I'd still consider a newspaper combine. The introduction of the queenless bees could be mistaken as robbers. That's my only fear. 

Update on my hives, it seems 2/3 of the splits has taken well. On last inspection, the third had failed their second consecutive queen. They were getting robber, and pests were taking over, and that's been over a week ago. I need to see where they stand soon, and recombine if they suck. 

In other news, I've started doing cutouts. Ha, why bother raising my own bees and honey if someone else is perfectly willing to do it for me in their wall!? Just kidding, I did salvage the bees, and relocated them to a buddy's farm. But I did also salvage nearly 30 pound of honey!


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