Checking the Walk-Away Splits

"Success in not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill

Let's skip the suspense: 13 Healthy Hives but 3 did not make queen cells.

All the splits are full of bees. Three made Queen Cells and Three did not.

Now last year, I labeled the hives A,B,C, etc and then labeled splits with A.1, A.2, B.1, C.1 etc. However, that could get confusing for the reader so I have relabeled them below.

The colored arrows indicate the original location of the hives
and then where the hive-queen was moved to during the
walk-away splits.

Black arrows indicate queen cell moves.

I cut queen cells out of Hive-B and put them in A, D, & E. This would have been a perfect correction except that when I removed some of the queen cells, the wax opened on the backside. I immediately placed the cells into their new location but I don't know if the introduction of air into the cells will have harmed the larva.

I'll check them Wednesday. If the Cells look okay then I will leave them be. If not, then I will remove eggs from one of the parent hives and try again.

My beetle traps didn't catch any beetles but there were beetles in the traps. The drier sheets just didn't snag the beetles. I will make some new ones with Swiffer sheets inside and set them Wednesday when I inspect the queen cells.

All and all, my splits look really healthy and the bees seem to have made a fairly even split.

All the hives were full of bees

Hive-D made 3 frames
of new wax

Queen Cells