I performed a cut out in a old barn that was about to pushed down. There was a very large colony inside, I removed a lot of bees and brood. I was suprised to see that there was nothing in the way of honey stores though. After getting the girls home I decided to split them up into 3 seperate colonies. Each new colony was given several frames of both open and closed brood. I did make sure that each one had plenty of eggs and very young brood. So far they have been closed up for the past 4 days. I have screened bottom boards and they are in an area where they recieve afternoon shade. I have been feeding them 1:1 syrup and gave each one some pollen sub.
My questions are
When I open them up tomorrow will they attempt to join up with the queen right part of the split? I did move them 15 miles from their original location but now they are in the same yard and pretty close together.
Is there a better way to do this? I am wanting to increase the number of colonies I have with as little expense as possible.