I had two hives and both made it through the winter, but one ended up
queen-less. So I did a walkaway split with the healthy one and gave the
queen-less one some frames of brood and larva (I have trouble seeing eggs).

A nearby top bar hive beekeeper just got her packages and I talked with her
about her overwintering problems (zero survival) . She insists that the top
bar hives can make it and her location is at fault, so I offered my land as
a place for one of her colonies. She had an several week on the shelf queen
and offered it to me, so I put it in the split.

She then got another queen and gave it to me so I put it into the
overwintered queenless hive.

When I checked the colonies a couple weeks later, there were no eggs or
larva so I thought the queens were a bust. They were Russians and I learned
on the list about the fact that non-Russian bees did not accept Russian
queens. Then I strained my Hip muscles and was chair bound for weeks. About
a month later my wife said that the bees seemed to be doing fine from all
the activity when she went by them on the riding lawnmower,but I knew that
was impossible since two were queen-less.

Listen to your spouse.

Since I still could not do much lifting to inspect the colonies, I asked
the State bee inspector for some help and he sent his assistant. Six weeks
after my injury he came and inspected my hives. All three were alive and
well. There were chewed up queen cells in the two that rejected the
Russians and both had great brood pattern., So those frames of brood and
larva were the life-savers. They raised their own, which was my original
plan.

Sometimes you do the right thing and it actually works.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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