Do Snelgrove Boards discourage queen rearing?

[wbchive]

I used Snelgrove boards for the first time this year to split three colonies. They didn't swarm, but the bees upstairs have been reluctant to produce new queens. When their initial lack of action got to the stage where all their brood was sealed, I gave them all a frame with eggs from downstairs. Two of the colonies raised the eggs as normal brood. One raised queen cells but I was there when two queens emerged and the workers chased them straight out of the entrance and wouldn't let them back in. The upstairs bees are not grumpy and they haven't become laying workers. They just go out and forage each day as if they are still queenright. It's most perplexing. Could it be that the mesh in the middle of the board is allowing enough pheromone through to make them think they're queenright? Should I just take out the Snelgrove board and reunite the colonies?
Any advice would be most appreciated.
Steve

 

[enrico]

You need at least two supers inbetween the brood box's. Did you have any?
E

 

[Ben90]

Even 2 might not be enough. I couldn't get a Q- colony on top of 2 to raise emergency queen cells from a frame of eggs. The solution I used was to put a sheet of plastic over the mesh for 48 hours after introducing a new frame of eggs so they'd initiate queen cell rearing.

 

[wbchive]

Thank you for the replies. I only had one super separating the split. I think I'll put them together again.
Steve

 

[MJBee]

You need at least two supers inbetween the brood box's. Did you have any?
E

I have always put 3 supers between the brood boxes and have not had any problems. I use that system as a queen cell raising colony and had 12 accepted from 18 in the last batch.

 

[Cellectronic]

I had one super in my setup, obviously not enough as they did very little upstairs.
I am currently trying a new setup , I put a roof on the bottom hive and put roof on top hive too (basically it is now 2 separate hives facing different ways), its been a week nearly with a test frame in the top and tomorrow is inspection day.

 

[enrico]

Roof or crown board?
E

 

[Cellectronic]

Hello E.

Both, I made the lower hive complete Crown and roof above brood and super.
then put the failed demaree on top of that using floor ,bb, crown and roof with a frame of eggs inside.
Doing it this way kept the entrance in the same area so as not to confuse them too much.

 

[wbchive]

To be honest I've found vertical splitting a bit of a pain. If you want to look at the bottom colony you have to shift the whole of the top one then you have returning foragers panicking because they think the family has moved house and not told them. Not good. I'll be going back to side-by-side splitting next year.

Steve

 

[Ben90]

To be honest I've found vertical splitting a bit of a pain. If you want to look at the bottom colony you have to shift the whole of the top one then you have returning foragers panicking because they think the family has moved house and not told them. Not good. I'll be going back to side-by-side splitting next year.

Steve

Vertical splitting can be a pain, but the problem with side-by-side splitting is that it's not necessarily the best option for an apiary with limited space.