Well went through 8 hives and in most cases was able to make extremly strong splits. I feel real confident I will have plenty of bees when the Russians arrive.
One note to make in many hives I had backfilling of the brood nest occuring, so I doubt very seriously the bees would have hung around until my russians arrived...
Swarm season IS going to be 2 weeks early and strong IMO...
Not only that but in some cases I still have a full double deep untouched since about a month ago I had placed entire boxes of drawn comb on my strongest ones. For three hives I had three deeps of solid top to bottom brood patterns. All I simply did was locate the queen, verify I had eggs in my split portion, and lifted an entire box. I also repositioned the parent hive with the laying queen and placed the split in its place, thus mimiking a swarm! The old queen is gone from the hive,and left behind is brood, no queen, and reserves, so the returning foragers believe the hive has swarmed!
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