Thanks for the excellent posts.  Somewhere I have squirreled away some
old posts of Dave Green on walk-away splits, which the archives might
reveal.  I'm just a sideliner,  but splits with swarm cells have done
well for me, tho my primary queen selection criterion is survival
without treatment.  Judging by the increasing number of feral bee
removals and calls I'm getting, the swarms that got away are more often
thriving.  I've been blending Russians in with my motley genetic crew
since the first year they were commercially available, and I find a
couple Russian characteristics surfacing in most of my stock.  First,
the Russians almost always have at least one queen cell with larva
working.....which could be helpful for walk-away splits.  Second, the
Russians seem more tolerant of multiple virgin queens, and maybe laying
ones too.  I clip my queens, and crowd older queens in nucs near the
house to force swarm cells,  so I often spot the primary swarm attempt
and then split the hive after they've come back.   I often find multiple
virgins, and undamaged queen cells even days after a swarm attempt.  If
I miss the primary they sometimes have multiple swarm clusters issue
simultaneously. One had at least 6 virgins, and separated and recombined
several times into different clusters before I got them hived.  In
several cases I saw multiple queens.   Some virgins I marked were mated,
others I never saw again.

I spent 2 afternoons with my 2-frame observation hive at an event, and
lo and behold there was a second unmarked queen acting like a virgin but
bigger than an unmated queen. The marked 'piddly', poorly mated but
well-bred Russian queen was brought especially for the small observation
box.  Somehow in the process of  several moves over a few weeks,  she
was superseded and the new queen managed to get mated.  I had noticed a
broken down supersedure-type cell on one frame, tho I put it off as
standard Russian behavior.  Over the course of  about 10 hours of
observation in a 30 hour period,  she went from a wandering, unattended
bee to a laying queen with retinue, while the old queen continued to
lay.  At first when she stopped and workers approached she would hunch
up and freeze while they looked her over.  As she wandered she would
occasionally stop a worker for some food.  If she got within about an
inch of the old queen she'd turn and move away quickly.  As the hours
progressed, more workers would approach when she stopped, tho at first
when they tried to groom her she would flick her leg away or her wings,
tho still somewhat hunched.  Occasionally she'd look in a cell, and
later she'd look then back her abdomen part way into a different cell.
By the end of the period I saw her perform the full look, walk up, and
back in completely routine of a mature queen, tho at the time I couldn't
see if she'd laid an egg.  She also collected a full retinue and
permitted their grooming, tho she still remained a little hunched
sometimes.  After she'd showed the laying behavior she wandered over to
the back of the old queens retinue bees, then turned and moved off
quickly.   The old queen was facing her,  but neither she nor her
retinue bees showed a discernable change in behavior,.  Today, 24 hours
later, they are both moving and laying, tho haven't had time to really
study them.  It'll be interesting to see how long they co-exist.
Several years ago with Italian stock in that hive, the old queen was
balled and torn to bits before the new virgin had mated.  Another virgin
swarm queen chewed into all the other queen cells as soon as she emerged
(Italian).  I'm sure there's considerable variation, but I wonder if
life in Siberia has selected higher queen-queen tolerance in our
Russians.  Makes sense to me, no time to waste in  the far north.....

Still a natural historian at heart...Carolyn in SC


allen dick wrote:

>> I wonder if Allen could share with us some helpful details of exactly
>> hoe
>> he does a walk away split?
>
>
> I detail that at http://www.honeybeeworld.com under 'selected topics'.

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