>Here you say,put them facing toward the old location. Do you leave your queen with some brood and eggs and bees in the old location ?
I usually leave nothing at the old location if doing this method of equalizing. You set a bottom on each side of the orginal hive and face the entrace toward the old hive and divide it up.
> How far away from the front of the old hive do you put the split hives ?
Anywhere from touching (my usual method when not bothering to face the old location) or the other side of the world or anything in between.
>The simple version is to make sure you have some eggs in each of the deeps and put them facing toward the old location. In other words put a bottom board on the left facing the left side of the hive and one on the right facing the right side of the hive and put one deep on each and maybe an empty deep on top of that. Put the tops on and walk away.
Exactly.
>In the even split,even split would be two hives,right ?
Probably, but that doesn't mean a booming hive couldn't be evenly split into three, but that would be norm. It's all playing it by ear. The stronger the split is the quickerr it takes off.
>If you take half,that means you end up with two hives,right ?
That wold be typical, yes.
＞Here you say,Face both of new hives at the sides of the old hive. Both at the side of the old would be three hives.
Ｔｈｅ ｏｌｄ ｈｉｖｅ ｉｓ ｎｏ ｌｏｎｇｅｒ ｔｈｅｒｅ．
＞ Do you leave any bees in the old hive ?
Ｎｏ．
． How far away from the old hive do you put both hives facing ?
Ｒｉｇｈｔ ｎｅｘｔ ｄｏｏｒ．
＞Michael,In this walk away split,Where do you put your nucs,say if you split into 3 or 4 nucs ?
Ａｎｙｗｈｅｒｅ ｙｏｕ ｌｉｋｅ．
＞In swarm control,Where do you place your split queen nuc when you move her to a nuc ?
Ａｎｙｗｈｅｒｅ ｙｏｕ ｌｉｋｅ．
＞ How and where do you place all the nucs ?
Ａｎｙｗｈｅｒｅ ｙｏｕ ｌｉｋｅ．
＞Do you put a frame of eggs in with the queen or just capped brood ?
Ｉ ｄｏｎ’ｔ ｃａｒｅ． Ｉｆ Ｉ ｓｅｅ ｔｈｅ ｑｕｅｅｎ Ｉ ｐｒｅｆｅｒ ｔｏ ｐｕｔｔ ｈｅｒ ｉｎ ａ ｎｅｗ ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ， Ｉｆ Ｉ ｄｏｎ’ｔ ｓｅｅ ｈｅｒ， Ｉ ｄｏｎ’ｔ ｃａｒｅ．
＞ Do you place the queen nuc back in the same place as the old hive or in a different location ?
Ａ ｄｉｆｆｅｒｅｎｔ ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ ｉｆ Ｉ ｈａｐｐｅｎｅｄ ｔｏ ｓｅｅ ｈｅｒ．
＞My main problem is, Where and how and how far apart do you place hives (nucs) when you split,so you don't get all the workers back in the same hive ?
Ｉ ｄｏｅｓ ｎｏｔ ｍａｔｔｅｒ ｏｎｅ ｌｉｔｔｌｅ ｂｉｔ．
＞Any reason why it has to be a nuc?
Ｎｏ． Ｉｔ’ｓ ｈｅｌｐｆｕｌ ｗｉｔｈ ａ ｖｅｒｙ ｓｍａｌｌ ｓｐｌｉｔ ｔｏ ｈａｖｅ ｌｅｓｓ ｒｏｏｍ ｔｏ ｇｕａｒｄ ａｎｄ ｔａｋｅ ｃａｒｅ ｏｆ．
＞ It seems to me that if you transfer over 4 full frames into an empty deep with 6 empty frames, that should work as well.
Ｉ ｗｉｌｌ ｗｏｒｋ ｏｋ． Ｂｕｔ ｎｏｔ ａｓ ｗｅｌｌ ａｓ ４ ｆｒａｍｅｓ ｏｆ ｂｒｏｏｄ ａｎｄ ｆｉｖｅ ｆｒａｍｅｓ ｏｆ ｈｏｎｅｙ ａｎｄ ａｎｏｔｈｅｒ ｂｏｘ ｏｆ ｅｍｐｔｙ ｃｏｍｂ．
＞ I think the explainations are good to be in excrutiating detail.
Ｔｈｅｒｅ ａｒｅ ｓｏ ｍａｎｙ ｖａｒｉａｔｉｏｎｓ ａｎｄ ｐｏｓｓｉｂｉｌｉｔｉｅｓ ｔｈａｔ ｔｈｉｓ ｉｓ ｉｍｐｏｓｓｉｂｌｅ． What you need are just the concepts. Make sure both halves have some brood and resources and that the brood is together and that you account for the drift by either facing them to the old hive, moving them 2 miles away or shaking in some extra bees, or swapping locations in a few days to equalize. Any of these methods works fine.
>Tell me one thing,do you place them facing toward the old location or Face both of new hives at the sides of the old hive ?
Both of the new hives to the old location that now has no hive. This is one of many methods to minimize the hives being unequal in population from drift.
>oy... this is complicated!
No. It's not. Just make sure they both have some brood and somewhat equal number of bees and if you anticipate drift shake some extra into the one that will drift away. Anymore I use all eight frame mediums, I do my splits when I have at least four boxes of bees and stores and I deal the boxes like cards. one for you and one for you onto two bottoms and put a top on each and walk away. I don't even look for brood or the queen. Ｔｈｅｙ ａｒｅ ｂｏｔｈ ｉｎ ａ ｎｅｗ ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ ｓｏ Ｉ ｄｏｎ’ｔ ｗｏｒｒｙ ａｂｏｕｔ ｄｒｉｆｔ．
＞..and all this time thought that a "Walk Away Split" was when one takes a hive, pulls out frames, brood, honey & pollen and puts them in another box, resulting in two boxes about even in brood, pollen and honey, fill up the empty spaces in each box with new frames with foundation (or not.) and then the Good Lord takes over and you get to........ walk away!
Ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ．
＞I thought that splitting was done so that one did not have to get a ladder to go fetch a swarm in some tree somewhere.
Ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ．
＞Yes one box will have a queen and one box will not, unless of course you kill the queen when you throw those frames around.
Ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ．
＞But natural evolution will make life in the hive want to carry on, reduce the entrances in both boxes, it gives the bees a fair advantage in defending the hive, if there is enough honey and pollen you won't have to feed them.
Ｙｅｓ．
＞Yes one hive will be slower to get kicking again, 16 days to new queen, four to five days before she get her spermathica upgraded and then...she'll get to play for a couple of days, eggs not quite where they should be but she'll get the hang of it and start laying 12 to 15 hundred eggs a day...
Ｓｕｒｐｒｉｓｉｎｇｌｙ ｉｔ’ｓ ｌｅｓｓ ｄｉｆｆｅｒｅｎｃｅ ｔｈａｎ ｙｏｕ ｔｈｉｎｎｋ． Ｔｈｅ ｂｅｅｓ ａｒｅｎ’ｔ ｊｕｓｔ ｓｉｔｔｉｎｇ ａｏｒｕｎｄ ｗｈｅｎ ｔｈｅｒｅ ｉｓ ｎｏ ｂｒｏｏｄ ｔｏ ｃａｒｅ ｆｏｒ， ｔｈｅｙ ａｒｅ ｆｏｒａｇｉｎｇ， ｓｏ ｔｈｅｙ ｈａｖｅ ｓｏｍｅ ｓｔｏｒｅｓ ｗｈｅｎ ｔｈｅ ｑｕｅｅｎ ｓｔａｒｔｓ ｌａｙｉｎｇ ａｎｄ ｔｈｅｙ ｃａｎ ｓｐａｒｅ ｍｏｒｅ ｂｅｅｓ ｆｏｒ ｎｕｒｓｉｎｇ．．．
＞Now you don't expect to harvest from either of those this year or do you?
Ｓｏｍｅｔｉｍｅｓ．
＞If you do, you'll notice that one is doing really good and one is doing not as well...harvest from the good one...
Ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ．
Ｐersonally I like to wait until the warmer days of spring to harvest...that way they use what they need and you can have the rest...
Ｏｒ ｔｈｅ ｃｏｌｄ ｄａｙｓ ｏｆ ｆａｌｌ．．．
＞Again you take a good hive, split it and walk away...that is a walk away split.
Ｙｅｓ．
＞Where you put the hive...who cares?
Ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ． Ｔｈｅ ｏｎｌｙ ａｄｖａｎｔａｇｅ ｔｏ ｆａｃｉｎｇ ｔｈｅ ｔｗｏ ｔｏ ｔｈｅ ｏｌｄ ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ ｉｓ ｂｅｔｔｅｒ ｅｑｕａｌｉｚａｔｉｏｎ． But it's not that big of a deal one way or the other.
＞ front facing east west south or north...won't keep the bees from using that water proof shelter...2 inches, two miles.. again, up to you the bees don't care.
No, they won't.
> Yes the foragers get to go back to the original location...however, every day, 12 to 15 hundred new foragers emerge and find their way back to the hive where they came from that day...so split and walk away.
Exactly.
>So...split and walk away. It's that simple.
Yes it is.
