Success with splits or swarm catches.?

[Mikey N.C.]

I know 3 beeks and me , that have had very low producing Q's. Is this a common issue. After making splits and or catching swarms?
Sugar roll has not shown V Mite population ?

[riverbee]

mikey, are the queens from the splits requeened or 'make your own'? swarm queens this time of year, for me.........a crapshoot. 

it's all about genetics, nutrition and how well fed they are, and abundance of pollen and nectar.  apis can probably shed more light on your question than i can. had swarms in august with well producing queens and some not. i don't like to pick up swarms this time of year in my climate, again, it's a crap shoot.
i see how well the queen is doing, if i think the hive won't make it, i combine with a stronger hive.  also, this time of year for me in my climate, i don't usually do any splits and any hive i find queenless is probably combined and if a queen is failing, the bees are combined as well.  otherwise will not make it up here.  sorry this probably doesn't help you, just the way i do it here in wisconsin.

[apisbees]

Is the brood area supported by the bees appropriate for the amount of bees in the hive/nuc?
If you have 3 frames of bees in a nuc The bees are not going to support more than 1 frame of brood. It has nothing to do with the queen but the amount of brood that the hive population can look after.
Frames of brood       Frames of bees        population of bees emerging over 21day in frames.      bees death over the same 21 days in frames.
2                             .5                            1                                                                             1
3                             1                             2                                                                             1.5
4                             2                             4                                                                              2
5                             3                             6                                                                              2.5
6                             4                             8                                                                              3
7                             5                            10                                                                              3.5
It is a 21 day brood cycle followed by a 40 day life cycle.
It is critical to have a population that can create an expanding colony. Another factor is the age of the bees, if the age of the bees is advanced due to a time of no brood rearing. the bee mortality rate will be higher.

[Mikey N.C.]

Mine were from small swarms and a split i made in late May -June. The split was from a box that swarmed, when i inspected i found 9 swarm cells , 3 on 3 different frames, so i moved 1 frame over to split box on the right and 1 to split box on the left and distributed every thing equally.  Two of the boxes are doing good but one is as you said only 4 frames of bees and shes laying softball size pattern on 3 frames.  In July i removed small swarms an the 2 splits from 5 frame nuc boxes to 10 frame. 
Can i shake nurse bees from a strong hive into these boxes?  Would that encourage the Q to lay ? Or do i need to reduce them back to nuc boxes ?

[apisbees]

This time of year if there is no of little honey coming in, It can be hard to get the bees to except bees from a different colony never mind a new hive.
You could do a 2 queen hive setup, place a queen excluder and piece of newspaper on top of a strong hive that has at least 1 honey super that is above an excluder. then the bees will slowly introduce themselves and the bees will come up and help the small hive on top. Then in 3 weeks pull it back off. and it should by that time be full of bees and brood.

[Mikey N.C.]

How successful is this method,  it sure sounds good.
Would i need to put small slits or holes in newspaper and would week hive on top need its own entrance ?

[apisbees]

Yes and yes. and if you think you are in a dearth then frame feeder in the bottom hive and a feeder in the top also. It will be the bees that decide whether they will tolerate 2 queens. As long as they are happy and busy They should be OK but they are bees and nothing is guaranteed.
But a super with some honey in it between the two colonies will slow the interaction between the bees and will keep the queens at least a super apart.

[Mikey N.C.]

Thanks apis for the great info.
I think i made a mistake this yr. I tried the community feeder thing this yr. So weak hives didn't have feed on them so installed top feeders on all weak hives I yesterday with some pollen sub. So I'm going to feed,feed and keep my fingers crossed.
Thanks again.