I'm a second year beekeeper.
I found this idea quite interesting last year so I tried my hand at it on May 10
this year and crossed my fingers. After about a month I began paying more
attention to the new split. After a couple more weeks I saw lots of pollen
being brought into the hive. Upon opening the hive I saw that I needed to
add another hive body. They're close to filling the second box.
Based upon the temperment of the bees I'd guess that there is a new queen
and she probably mated primarily with drones not from my colonies. There is a
noticeable difference from the other bees I have.
I'd chalk this up to being a successful first attempt. I plan on doing this
regularly in the future but possibly with one variation. I think I'll try moving
the queen into the new split. I want to interrupt the brood cycle of the more
populated parent hive by removing the queen and letting them create a new
one. This should help reduce the Varroa population.
Dan
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