Snelgrove question

[Levitt53]

I was planning on doing a snelgrove split on a large colony which has brood on all 11 frames. I want to give a friend the split as he's down to one colony and they have a nice temperament. Also they are on old comb so it seems a good opportunity to get rid of that. As it's only my second year I have no drawn comb spare so I was advised on here to give them an additional brood box for them to move up into. I did that two weeks ago.

On inspecting today they've started to draw out the new comb nicely and there is BIAS on the one new frame plus the old one I put up there. I cannot for the life of me find the queen in any of my colonies, never have been able too. I hoped she would be in that top box but could not see her on either of these frames. I looked in the bottom box and there was some larvae in there so I can't be sure which box she is in so could not attempt the snelgrove.

What I did was put another excluder between the two boxes on the assumption that she was probably in the top box. I could then inspect next week and see for definite which box she is in and have another attempt to find her and mark her. If she turns out to have been in the bottom box it's not the end if the world. I'm sitting here mulling it all over and have realised that if she was indeed in the top box I have effectively done the first step of the snelgrove, albeit with the boxes in the wrong order. I could however go back in on day 4, Wednesday, and if there are eggs in the top box I could simply reorder them in the correct order with the snelgrove board in the correct place and I'm on my way with the split.

I should add there are no signs of queen cells.

Am I right or have I missed something?

 

[Levitt53]

Any Snelgrove experts out there?

 

[enrico]

Bit confused why you are doing a snelgrove split. Why not just split the two brood box's when they are strong. Keep brood in each, keep the queen in the original position so you keep the flyers and send the new queen and brood to your friend, or am I missing something?
E

 

[Anduril]

Any Snelgrove experts out there?

Are you using a snelgrove board? You talk about queen excluder which suggests it could be a demaree. More info on your setup please. If it is brood box on top of brood box without a snelgrove board in between, you have gone double brood.

 

[Levitt53]

I have a snelgrove board but that goes in on day 4. I know I've gone on double brood now but I had a reason as I said. Hopefully with the queen in the box with only a little brood I was think I've affectively done what I should but just with the boxes in the wrong order even though that's not what I intended to do. Obviously she might not be there in which case I'll move the excluder again.

Why a snelgrove? Well why not. Don't we all just pick a method and go with that. But specifically I don't have much spare room so it makes sense.

 

[wightbees]

Another way is to shake /brush all bees into brood box from each frame,then put QE on and brood frames above QE , nurse bees will come straight up to cover brood frames.