Artificial Swarm

With so many bees on the combs it took nearly 10 minutes to find the queen before a split could be accomplised. After finally locating her, I moved that comb (mainly drone brood) to the new hive in addition to some newly laid worker larvae, capped brood, and pollen/honey.

After placing the queen into the new hive, hardly any of the returning worker bees went to the queen! It took a good half hour before any 'old hive' bee visited the entrance holds of the 'new hive'. I quickly discovered why it was so important to place capped brood in the hive. As the new brood emerge they will take ownership of the hive, while the older bees remember their earlier lives in the 'motherland'. A few of the bees left the new hive, flew out, and flew into the old one; I guess old habits die hard!

Below are but a FEW of the 30+ queen cups (swarm cells) present in the hive.