walkaway splits are they good for swarm prevention/

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way thinking of this approach next year if the hives build fast in April
http://www.honeybeesuite.com/how-to-make-a-walkaway-split/

are they a good way of keeping chances of summer swarming down?

Was fancying this way due to wanting to get to 4 hive this year without buying bees or queens plus I don't fancy looking for an unmarked queen in a bursting box of bees in the height of summer again( marked was bad enough) and the fact the queen vanished when I did an AS this year despite no apparent loss of any bees
 
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Too easy to be true.
Walk away split is not a swarming prevention method..... If you do not know, what you are doing.
You may keep hives so weak, that they do not swarm, but they will not bring honey either.
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I've just read the link as I didn't know what a 'Walk away split' was. The queenless side may not be big enough to feed a good queen and you might end up with a scrub queen if the bees choose an older larvae.

That's why if you do it, it's worth piling loads of nurse bees in there with plenty of stores and pollen and closing up for four days or so - then when you open up tear down any sealed QC's
 
That's why if you do it, it's worth piling loads of nurse bees in there with plenty of stores and pollen and closing up for four days or so - then when you open up tear down any sealed QC's

is that because the sealed ones were pulled quicker from older larve?

so at that same time you leave the open ones being fed to be brought on for the better (fed from early egg) queen?
 
yes - Wally Shaw is a big fan of the walkaway method and just leaves the bees to it,he reckons they'll sort themselves out, but I think it's better to get in there and make sure.
 
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You have 2 hives, and then one walk away split, you cannot peep inside during next 2 months, because if you peep, it is not any more walk away thing.



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That's why if you do it, it's worth piling loads of nurse bees in there with plenty of stores and pollen and closing up for four days or so - then when you open up tear down any sealed QC's

It would still be better if the beekeeper knew where the queen was as the nurse bees could be removed from the queenless box.
 
The places where walk away splits are popular and successful are places where authors write about checking for a couple of frames of brood a fortnight after the virgin has emerged. This very, very rarely happens where I keep bees and I imagine it's not much better in the rest of the UK. What a waste of resources if you split a colony, wait over a month only to find the queen has failed.
 
....What a waste of resources if you split a colony, wait over a month only to find the queen has failed.

IT is same here. My summer is half away when I check the nuck and my tiny emergency queen.

I make 3 frame mating nucs and I rear good quality selected queens. I do nothing with those "do nothing style queens". I like queen rearing and I need nog walk away queens.

AS is really quick and reliable to make. As quick as that nuc making. No advantage from that splitting.


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It would still be better if the beekeeper knew where the queen was as the nurse bees could be removed from the queenless box.

well it would be pointless piling in nurse bees etc into the Q + side wouldn't it? it all depends on whether you just split the colony in two and cross your fingers or make up what is essentially a Q- nuc for them to raise a new queen - thus leaving your mother colony with queen and full complement of bees to carry on foraging but with plenty of laying space
 
well it would be pointless piling in nurse bees etc into the Q + side wouldn't it? it all depends on whether you just split the colony in two and cross your fingers or make up what is essentially a Q- nuc for them to raise a new queen - thus leaving your mother colony with queen and full complement of bees to carry on foraging but with plenty of laying space

How is this different to an AS?

The OP mentions not wanting or being able to find the queen, but in my opinion this walk away split idea would not help unless the queen was found.
 
The OP mentions not wanting or being able to find the queen, but in my opinion this walk away split idea would not help unless the queen was found.

There is an easy way to do a walk away split without finding the queen and knowing with reasonable certainty which half she is in.
 

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