I would not be so quick to blame the fact that the queens were Russian.

> The acceptance of any queens is going to be poor if the bees have already
> started queen cells, which seems to have been the case.
>

Problem is that the Russian queen was also introduced to the queen-less
colony along with two frames of brood and larva, so there was no issue with
started queen cells. There were none.

Both colonies gave every appearance of rejecting the queens and starting
their own. Add that I have never had a problem with rejected queens before.
Based on all that has been said about difficulties introducing Russians,
what happened seems to be the logical assumption.

Add that my normal method of splitting colonies is walkaway splits, and
they followed that process exactly, especially as far as timing.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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