For several years I have been making nucs & splits using Italian and Carniolan (and sometimes Russian) bees and Russian queens.  Early in the bee season you can get away with a lot of walkaway techniques that won't work later.  On the US east coast I have found that later it in the year it is important to place the intended split brood above a queen excluder and the queen for 4 to 5 days.  This is to make sure the bees do not have viable options for making their own queen.  I start with 1 or 2 frames of brood, often from different colonies, always in a different box.  I give them 12 to 24 hrs to come to grips with their queenlessness, before adding a queen.  I then use JZ BZ intro cages, for slow introduction, keeping tape over the candy tube for a day or 2.  Then remove the tape and the plastic end bar, opening the "get acquainted window" for nurse bees to come and go.  The designer of JZ BZ cages understood the importance of getting acquainted, so well described in Jay Smith's classic book, Better Queens (avail free online from Bush Bees).  Why does nobody talk about this and nobody seems to know about the window designed into those plastic cages?  I continue to see folks using the Italian bee management styles carefully developed for at least 150 years and they are surprised it does not work the same on Russians! ??   Russians, according to queen breeder Bill Sprenkle, "just get it done"! but not using Italian rules.  Unmanaged they will swarm at twice the rate of Italians, build, maintain and tear down perfectly good queen cells, hold 10-15 virgin queens captive for a week or two at a time, shut down brood productions when Italians are still going gang busters, etc, etc.  We just have to use their tendencies to our advantage.  Let's stop trying to put a square peg in the round hole.  Yes it is easier to make Russian splits out of Russian bees, but it is not the only way.
Joe Lewis, Bel Air, Maryland, USA

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