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Split went terribly wrong, is this common?

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kace069:
So I made a split approximately 3 weeks ago? I think. Had two funerals last week and drank alot so kinda lost track of time. Anyways
I am still kind of new at this, and this was my first split. This colony was very strong and already had about 6 supercedure cells, It was also time to reverse brood chambers. So I decided to do it all at once. I took the bottom super full of bees and moved it to a new bottom board. I split up brood,honey, and pollen between the two. I never found the queen but was sure she was there and in the bottom super. I then put a new deep on each one with fresh frames of foundation and closed them up.
1 week later. Everything looks fine. I didn't disturb the colonies to badly I just wanted to make sure that they didn't reform into one colony every thing looked great.
About 2 weeks later, aka yesterday. No brood, no eggs, all but 1 queen cell open. Both colonies took sugar syrup again, before the split they weren't eating any.
So it looks to me that just about every queen just hatched and flew off! Didn't even bother to kill the others. I had flying drones.
Now what do I do. Is it to late for me to order queens? Just wait them out? Hope they requeen as was the original plan?
This was a complete bummer! I thought I was getting out of buying bees this year. Not sure but this colony looked as if it was getting ready to swarm before the split. Thought I was saving myself of a headache of a swarming colony 20 miles away.

Finsky:

--- Quote from: kace069 ---Both colonies took sugar syrup again, before the split they weren't eating any.
.
--- End quote ---


You have summer and you are feeding syrup to hives????

You tried to stop swarming?

It is done this way:

When you see that bees have capped queen cells they are sure to swarm.

Move hive 10 feet away.
Put new hive on old site. Put one larva frame and queen and other frames foundations.  Bees fly themselves to new hive.

New hive loose it's swarming fever and the old part of hive (normally) is not able to swarm because it has lost it's swarming  bees.

Concept is that when main yield begins, you put hive parts together. So you get normal yield. If you do not join them, you hardly get honey.

It is better to get new commercial queen. They are not so easy to swarm.
.

kace069:
I'm in Michigan its just starting to think about summer here. I only Fed them a couple of quarts earlier in the spring and then gave them a week after the split before I gave them another quart each.  The last couple of weeks we were lucky to hit 60 during the day and it was starting to dip into the low 30's at night. A 70 degree day thrown in there every now and then. I probably have another 3 weeks or so before a real flow starts here.

Kinda confused about your line here finsky. Concept is that when main yield begins, you put hive parts together.
I wanted to have two colonies and prevent a swarm.
I couldn't move the colonies 10 ft apart. I just put the new one up in the old location and turned the old one  so the entrance faced west instead of south where it orginaly sat. I put a branch in front of the old location to confuse foragers hoping they would even them selves out.
Like I said my intention was to have 2 colonies. Honey crop isn't extermely important to me, expanding my yard is my main objective. I have a colony here at home I can get honey out of this season.
I only fed to help with wax production and the shortage of foragers. I was hoping to get a crop out of them, but it is still pretty early in the season for me, I have until september or october before the flow is over.

Finsky:

--- Quote from: kace069 ---
Kinda confused about your line here finsky. Concept is that when main yield begins, you put hive parts together. .
--- End quote ---


Big hive gather better honey than 2 small. I put 2 weak hive together when main yiled begins (canola).

Small hive is 3-4 boxes.   3+3 boxes is good.

4+4 +4 = 6+6 box hives.

--- Quote ---I wanted to have two colonies and prevent a swarm..
--- End quote ---


If your swarm left, you need not any more prevent swarming.

--- Quote ---I couldn't move the colonies 10 ft apart. I just put the new one up in the old location and turned the old one  so the entrance faced west instead of south where it orginaly sat. I put a branch in front of the old location .
--- End quote ---


That is OK

--- Quote ---Like I said my intention was to have 2 colonies. Honey crop isn't extermely important to me, .
--- End quote ---


The aim of beekeping is get honey. If you dont want honey, it is same how you keep bees.  I need red line. Witout it I may do what ever someone say do do do and try try try all nonsence what world may find ...

You may keep you big hive and it's purpose is to get honey.
Then you keep 3 frame nuc which grow slowly along summer.

When honey summer is about over, you take from big hive some brood frames and give them to nuc. So you get whole box full of brood and a good hive for winter.

You may too devide your big hive to 2 parts and you put 2 laying queen inside. So you have 3 hives.

You may do that and get honey too.  Next spring you have difficulties. You need combs and bees are slow to build them in spring. So you need this summer strong hive which make you new combs.

Too planning - is it? ..

Beginners are eager to split their hives... You win a lot if you get good egg laying queens from commercial beekeeper. Swarm queens are not good at all, what ever those natural beekeepers say :P .
.

TwT:

--- Quote from: kace069 --- So I made a split approximately 3 weeks ago? I think. Had two funerals last week and drank alot so kinda lost track of time. Anyways
I am still kind of new at this, and this was my first split. This colony was very strong and already had about 6 supercedure cells, It was also time to reverse brood chambers. So I decided to do it all at once. I took the bottom super full of bees and moved it to a new bottom board. I split up brood,honey, and pollen between the two. I never found the queen but was sure she was there and in the bottom super. I then put a new deep on each one with fresh frames of foundation and closed them up.
1 week later. Everything looks fine. I didn't disturb the colonies to badly I just wanted to make sure that they didn't reform into one colony every thing looked great.
About 2 weeks later, aka yesterday. No brood, no eggs, all but 1 queen cell open. Both colonies took sugar syrup again, before the split they weren't eating any.
So it looks to me that just about every queen just hatched and flew off! Didn't even bother to kill the others. I had flying drones.
Now what do I do. Is it to late for me to order queens? Just wait them out? Hope they requeen as was the original plan?
This was a complete bummer! I thought I was getting out of buying bees this year. .
--- End quote ---



it can sometimes take a new queen after she hatches up to 2 weeks to make her mating flight depending on weather, then it could take her another 1-3 weeks before she gets to laying good.... if the young queen is there and you put a bought queen in the hive the bee's will kill the queen you paid for. a good way to tell is to add a frames of eggs and young brood and the bee's will tell you if they have a queen in a few days, if they are queenless they will make queen cells out of the frame you put in, if they dont majke queen cells you have a young queen in the hive and she just need time...

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