Hello All,
Walk away splits. Very crude to say the least. OK I suppose for the hobby
beekeeper.

 The method was common practice 100   years ago with all but the most
knowledgeable beekeepers.

I could fill a couple posts with what is wrong but the big concern is if one
figures the amount of time until a new laying queen workers are in the hive
from *eggs* as Scot suggests the walk away split will have shrunk to nuc
size.

1. approx.16 days egg to emerging virgin queen

2. approx 12 -14 days until queen  mated & laying eggs

3. 21 days till workers emerge

approx  28 lost queen laying days

Mated caged queen introduced and laying in 3 days.

approx 28 lost days of queen rearing lost  with walk away split(conservative
est.)

28 days times even 1000 eggs a day which  is conservative est. at time of
year Allen suggests ( 28,000 lost worker bees)


approx. days till *laying queen in hive*:

1. mated queen fastest way to get hive in production (3 to 5 days)

2.dequeened and rip cell added ( 12-14 days)

3. walk away split ( 28  days)

The above times are approx but close to correct time. One can easily see why
the queen is the most valuable insect in the hive.

Queens which are raised correctly pay dividends.

Quote from the beekeeping legend Dr. Farrar:

"Poorly reared queens of productive stock generally will be inferior to
well-reared queens from less productive stock"

Walk away splits  *without introduction of new alleles* from time to time
fixes undesirable traits in your yards as no selection process is in place
to improve stock.

Scots method of adding eggs from his best hive might improve his walk away
splits but is a  very  crude  form of bee breeding.

Not even practiced by the old masters Miller, Alley, Smith & Doolittle. The
Doolittle method has stood the test of time and is the most used method by
queen producers around the world after over a 100 years.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

"Beekeeping is both simple and complicated at the same time"

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