i got a pretty straight forward question

[sas_marine@hotmail.com]

i have a newly aquired hive.. 2 deep both brood no excluder etc etc, there is obviously more brood downstairs then up, what i want to know is.... can i swap a few frames from downstairs to upstairs so that the brood is split quite evenly through the 2 boxes and then just split both boxes up without adding a queen,,, because im thinking with 9 frames of brood surely there will be enough young stage brood to raise a queen ? and 1 box will already have a queen and the other will have to raise its own, does it sound like an easy step there is enough bees to cover every frame in the hive plus a small swarm sized amount of bees as excess im thinkn just cut 9 frames into another box and drop it in the bush for a month before adding them to the same site again ? ideas and thoughts please

[kathyp]

you can do that.  you don't need to equalize the brood.  you do need to make sure that you choose frames with eggs.  a couple of frames with brood at various stages will do.  put enough workers in and you are good.

are you saying you have 18 frames full of bees?  if that is the case, a split is a very good idea!

[fish_stix]

Personally, I would try to equalize the capped/emerging brood also so that each box continues to have max bees. Then just make sure to get plenty of eggs, honey and pollen in the queenless box and you should be good to go. No need to move them; the field bees will return to the original hive leaving you with only young bees in the split. You might need to shake a couple frames of bees into the new hive if they look light after the split.

[SlickMick]

Either way SAS and you should be fine

Mick

[sas_marine@hotmail.com]

nice, thats todays job then haha

[sas_marine@hotmail.com]

ok so i did make a cut, it was a very small cut but i managed to get 4 frames of brood attached (badly) into the tbh, i shaked many frames of bees into the new hive aswell, i saw one frame of brood had a  fair good supply of pollen, altho, i dont exaclty have any honey in the hive, their is a very small amount on some of the frames, im not seeing the hive doing all that much collecting but i think its expected seeing that they are still trying to comb the split comb all back together and to the fixture of the tbh, their is 2 frames in the hive on just comb, so hopefully i will see some stores in the next week or so, if not ill have to feed, one thing i didnt check was to check for small grubs, i mainly just went for sealed brood and in the heat of it all sorta forgot to check for grubs, so hopefully their is enough to raise a queen, i think this chop was pretty badly managed but was the best i coiuld do given the situation, now its actuallly a coin flip to see if the hive survives, rain is here so flowers are out, the rest is up to the bees fingers crossed

[Robo]

I guess it is too late since you have already done it,  but something to think about for the future.

http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/can-you-afford-emergency-queens/

[sas_marine@hotmail.com]

yer, i read it, i basically knew all that already lol, but i just wished i had more brood to add, the bees got to fired up when i started sawing throught their combs of brood, so the cut is now 3 days old and it would take me 7 days to get a queen, so should i get a queen or should i wait and hope they raise one??? quick response would be good so i can make the call