> I made sure there were a few queen cells in each of the splits.

> Now, do any of you have opinions on whether or not the young queen I
> introduced in December will tear apart the queen cells in her hive, now
> that there is lots of space in the new brood chamber?

As you split the hive, you have certainly made it SEEM
like a swarm has left.  At least in the opinion of the
mammals involved in the operation, as if the opinions
of mammals mattered in the least to the bees.  :)

...except the same laying queen is still there in whichever
half of the split she occupies.  In a real swarming scenario,
the mated queen would leave with the swarm.

But an in-place mated, laying queen does not, to my knowledge,
wander around and sting (kill) "competitive queen cells".
This is something that only newly-emerged virgins are known
for doing, at least in the "conventional wisdom".

So, what clues can be assumed to be available to the
bees in the splits with the existing (mated, laying) queens?

a)  Things are suddenly much less crowded.

b)  The swarm (queen) cells are still intact.

c)  Pheromones from the existing mated
    queen can be assumed to still be strong.

d)  Brood pheromone from open brood continues to
    exist in the hive over time, proving to all
    and sundry that the existing queen continues to lay.

I'd speculate that the bees would read all this as
at least any one of the following, if not something
more obscure, complex, and/or preverse:

1) The first swarm has "left the hive", so let's
   get to work on producing the 2nd, 3rd....nth.
   (In this scenario, the number of queen cells
   is assumed to be an indicator of an intent
   to produce multiple swarms in succession,
   and there is nothing that will stop them
   short of destruction of each and every queen
   cell now in place, and every queen cell they
   build for the next "n" weeks, where "n" is a
   very tedious number.)

2) We are now done swarming, and can tear down the
   extra swarm cells we raised, as the queen we have
   is generating strong pheromones.  (In this scenario,
   a sudden drop in bee population alone is enough to
   fool the bees into thinking that they are "done".)

3) Since we still detect the pheromones of the "old"
   queen, the swarm has NOT yet left, so we should
   continue with swarm preparation.  (In this scenario,
   the bees, once started down the road to swarming,
   are nearly impossible to stop without the same
   tedious inspection and queen-cell removal as in [1],
   as they expect to detect a NEW queen, and will not
   stop until they do so.  In other words, swarming is
   a pheromone-driven thing, and bees can tell "old"
   versus "new" queens by their pheromones.)

There may be more possible scenarios, but I can't think
of any that would be based upon tangible clues.
(Anyone want to add a few?)

If anyone knew the exact cues for swarming, there would be
far fewer books on the subject, far fewer beekeeper
discussions, and swarming would be a simple and predictable
thing to detect and control, no more exciting than weeding
the garden or doing the dishes.

Since you have 15 hives to split, you could experiment with
a large enough number to publish a decent paper in a respectable
journal.

Find the queen after making all splits, mark it, and for each group
of 5 hives that have both queen cells and the existing queen,
where the "group" of 5 is a random "pull a hive number out of a hat"
selection:

a)  Remove all queen cells, and see if the bees try to make
    more queen cells.  If they make more, cut them out.

b)  Leave the queen cells, and "squeeze the bees" so that they
    are just as crowded as they were before the split.
    (If you are using "deeps", maybe install a vertical
    divider to create a smaller hive within the "deep" hive body,
    and duct tape plastic wrap around the "dead space" to keep
    the bees from expanding into the "dead" area.)

c)  Leave the spilt "as is", leaving the newly available space
    and taking care not to damage any queen cells.
    (These would be your "controls".)

Maybe there are other options, but the two choices (a) and (b)
would be among the more popular of the rituals performed in the
modern-day voodoo ceremonies of "swarm prevention".

Inspect all the colonies on a regular basis, record your
observations, and there you have it.  Raw data that might shed
some additional light on the subject.

Problem is, would you be able to notice if one of the splits
swarmed at any point in the process?  If any one of the splits
produces a swarm, this would be a mission-critical thing to
be able to detect with certainty.  Since the "old queen" leaves
with the first swarm, you need to mark your queens up front,
and check for the continued presence of the marked queen during
the entire spring at regular intervals.

Science is a lot more work than beekeeping, but it can be fun.


                jim  (Who must admit to never having made the effort
                  to do this experiment himself, despite annual
                  opportunities for more than a decade.)

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