new foragers after split

[echidna]

I split my hive last week and I only have one site so I knew the foragers from the new hive would return to the hive in the original position (which can't be moved). I shook in extra frames of bees to help make up for this, and gave them syrup in addition to the frames of stores.

Until yesterday I hadn't seen any activity at the entrance to the new hive. Yesterday evening there were quite a lot of bees coming and going even though it was overcast and windy. I suspected that bees from the original hive were robbing the new one. I put a sheet over the new one and the lack of activity this morning suggests I might have been right - no bees are accumulating inside the sheet as if they wanted to go out foraging. There was no fighting yesterday, but I thought that could be because they were split so recently that they didn't recognise the bees as intruders.

My questions are, when should I expect new forgagers to be operating from the new hive? And when will the two hives recognise each other as different so mixed bees would fight? (This is relevant both for robbing but also me topping up the new hive with bees from the original one to further allow for lost foragers.)

Thank you.

 

[Madge]

Where is the queen? I would have moved her as the split into a nuc. If not, I guess I would be inclined to put the hive together again because, as it is now, doesn’t sound like a good set-up to to me.

Split them when they prepare to swarm.

 

[echidna]

I didn't go into that because I didn't think it was relevant to my question. The queen is in a nuc and the original and new hives, created from a double brood split, have queen cells. They will be checked a week from the split to leave just one queen cell per hive.

 

[Murox]

To clarify – you now have 2 queenless BB's both with queen cells and stores and BIAS that are a week old. And you have your queen in a nuc. Is that correct ?

Sounds as though the syrup on the one hive has set off robbing as you suspected, so remove it.
Bees will change duties fairly quickly as they adapt to the needs of the colony.
Is the 'robbed' colony now very weak?

 

[echidna]

To clarify – you now have 2 queenless BB's both with queen cells and stores and BIAS that are a week old. And you have your queen in a nuc. Is that correct ?

Sounds as though the syrup on the one hive has set off robbing as you suspected, so remove it.
Bees will change duties fairly quickly as they adapt to the needs of the colony.
Is the 'robbed' colony now very weak?

Yes, that's correct but they were split five days ago so I will destroy all but one queen cell in each in 2 days time. (Queen in nuc has frame of stores and frame of brood, mostly sealed when I put it in, and drawn comb plus one frame of foundation as I didn't have any more drawn. Also with 'extra' bees added.)

The 'robbed' colony still has a reasonable number of bees on the top bars (by my beginner judgment) and I had topped it up with bees shaken from the super of the original hive a few days ago. It has a dummy frame in one space. I don't think it could be so weak that it couldn't produce foragers if it wanted to, but as I said in my original post, I don't know how quickly a hive would normally do that. If they had syrup, perhaps the hive felt it wasn't necessary yet? If a hives normally recruit new foragers within a day then obviously there is something weird going on and I will rethink whether it is too weak.

 

[Murox]

Keep the nuc strong, feed it - they need to draw the foundation to give her laying space. You could even take the odd frame of sealed brood out to bolster your main hive if needs be later. You will have a better idea of where you are going when you inspect in 2 days time.

 

[beeno]

I split my hive last week and I only have one site so I knew the foragers from the new hive would return to the hive in the original position (which can't be moved). I shook in extra frames of bees to help make up for this, and gave them syrup in addition to the frames of stores.

Until yesterday I hadn't seen any activity at the entrance to the new hive. Yesterday evening there were quite a lot of bees coming and going even though it was overcast and windy. I suspected that bees from the original hive were robbing the new one. I put a sheet over the new one and the lack of activity this morning suggests I might have been right - no bees are accumulating inside the sheet as if they wanted to go out foraging. There was no fighting yesterday, but I thought that could be because they were split so recently that they didn't recognise the bees as intruders.

My questions are, when should I expect new forgagers to be operating from the new hive? And when will the two hives recognise each other as different so mixed bees would fight? (This is relevant both for robbing but also me topping up the new hive with bees from the original one to further allow for lost foragers.)

Thank you.

I and a fellow beekeeper found no activity at all for the first 3 days in the -Q split. Young house bees will become foragers in due course. But as they are -Q with stores there is not an immediate requirement for foraging.

 

[echidna]

Thanks beeno. I have seen some pollen going in now so hopefully that's them sorted just slightly slower than yours.

 

[drex]

In the same apiary I made up 3 nucs on Monday and 2 on Tuesday. Today all had bees coming and going and orientation flights. Patience is a necessary beekeeping skill.