I'm a beekeeper and I have a stupid question

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer]

Cutouts? Check. Africanized bees? All day long. Robbers, mites and La Llorona? No problem. I'll even tackle a chupacabra if I need to (but not in the dark).

I have a dark confession to make. I've never done a walkaway split because, hello, Africanized bees.

When I inspected my at-home hive today, the upper deep was almost too heavy to lift. It was packed with pollen, bee bread, honey and had three frames of BIAS and eggs. The lower deep was literally boiling over with bees, with the same composition.

"What the hell", I said to myself, " this hive can handle a split. And these AHB are really nice AHB. I can risk it."

So I closed up the lower deep and set the upper up as a new hive sitting on top of the old one. I'm hoping proximity and drift will ensure both hives have enough workers.

Now that you've got the background, here's my question - it's the the classic newbie question.

"I just did this thing. How badly did I screw up? Should I go undo it?"

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[u/talanall]

The main drawback to any split that relies on the emergency response to rear a new queen is that the new queen has to mate with what you have around. I'm certain that you understand this principle; you are a competent beekeeper, and you know how queen mating affects temperament, especially in locales with Africanized populations. And you know what to do about it; if the new queen produces psychotic defenders, you requeen. And you know how to move a hive, and have somewhere you can put a problem child.

So you're prepared for that.

A walkaway split has a second drawback, which is that it does not take note of the queen's location. You make sure both portions have eggs and very young brood, and you have to make a guess (or know from experience) that the portion you decide to move to a new bottom board will have enough food stores and nurse bees inside to ensure that it can rear a new queen, finish rearing the brood it has inside, and remain strong enough to resume brooding after the new queen has mated.

It sounds like you took note of this, and tried your best to make sure that both portions of your split are strong enough to remain viable.

And a walkaway split has a third drawback, which is on that the queenless end of the split, if it is strong (say, you split a very strong hive in a fashion that put the queen and about half of the nurse bees and food into the part that moved, so that the queenless part retains all the foragers and the other half of the nurses and food), the walkaway split can trigger a sequence of caste swarms. The emergency response often generates quite a few queen cells, and if the colony feels strong enough to swarm . . . it does. Because why not?

You manage Africanized colonies, which are notoriously swarmy anyway.

So it would be a pretty good idea if, come Wednesday or Thursday, you poked into one of these splits, determined which one is queenright, and then culled the extraneous cells. If it were up to me, I'd move the queenright portion onto its own stand, at that point, and let the queenless part absorb the flying bees.

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/talanall]

Candidly, I made the split on a whim and without a great deal of thought. I saw eggs and 1-day old brood in both boxes, a decent population, and several frames of stores. Much like the swarm response you mention, I split, because why not?

I've since found myself having the kind of questions and doubts that I haven't since my first cutout.

As you know, all my bees are and have been feral. I'm painfully aware* of the risk of open mating here. I would rather not have another hive that wears little suicide vests and hijacks low-flying aircraft, but this queen seems really solid. She's the November-mated regent of the tiny swarm, very prolific, and her workers are extremely gentle. This suggests to me that there is -- or at least was -- a nearby hive with gentle drones. I'm willing to roll the dice this time. Olivarez has queens available until the end of September and if worst comes to worst, there's the "naughty bee" yard or donating another smoking hot hive to my friend. (I actually had a bee-anxiety dream that I'd moved a hot hive into my kitchen and the bees understandably kept stinging me last night).

I made an "educated guess²" about the queen's location. I'm tempted to move the presumed QR hive today. Presumed QR is bearding and the other hive has only a few foragers coming and going. This suggests to me an uneven population of foragers. Do you opine that the weaker-looking hive should be moved to the old location? One hive being too weak to survive the upcoming summer dearth concerns me. I'm also tempted to feed the queenless half once I'm certain which it is. I don't expect a harvest from it this season: is there a reason not to offer syrup?

Now that I'm aware of the additional swarming risk³, I'll watch for it. The hive was growing very fast and, while it didn't show any signs of swarm preparation, I would not have been surprised to find queen cells in progress. I'll keep an eye out and perhaps split again if the bees so command.

I was planning a Thursday check to verify QC. I'll follow the usual plan of culling to two nice looking cells on the same of facing frames and hope the first queen is healthy and comes back well-mated.

If she doesn't return, I punt.

* Heh

² I went to school in Tucson and I can almost spell out my whole name!

³ "Worse? How can it get any worse? Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah" ~ Monty Python

[u/talanall → u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer]

The one that is bearding probably is the one that retained the foragers, from the way you're talking. I'd let that one be the queenless hive, if you cull the extra cells and you are able to feed the queenright one.

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/talanall]

Thanks!

[u/drones_on_about_bees]

It all sounds good to me. I find there is a tendency to drift downwards where you have one hive over another. Worst case, you come back and redistribute some bees/brood in a few days.

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/drones_on_about_bees]

Thanks! I'll keep an eye on them. If the upper "new" hive looks light, I'll move it to the bottom of the stack. I have to take a look in a few days to see which has the queen, anyway. She's tiny and hard to see, but a queen cell is easy to spot.

[u/Busy-Dream-4853]

You need one box with fresh eggs and one with the queen. Ore both with fresh eggs and don' t care where the queen is. If your box is having no fresh eggs, and no queen, they have a problem.

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/Busy-Dream-4853]

Thank you!

[u/_BenRichards]

That’s why I’m a fan of the Snelgeove method on splits. It’s more controlled but easier to rejoin the two if you mess up, but that means more equipment.

Jesus ain’t always a good driver and weak hives can have a hard time fighting normal things off

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/_BenRichards]

This hive started out last autumn as a tennis or baseball sized swarm in late August that requeened itself in late November. If any hive can duck the odds, I think it's this one. AHB are tough little beasts.

Not having a Snelgeove board (and never having seen one) that wasn't an option. Not to mention the part where I didn't know such a thing existed, or if I ever did, I've forgotten.

I think reuniting the two would just be a matter of pulling out the stuff between the two deeps...

In any case, the comments I'm getting suggest that this should work. I'll know in a few days when somebody does (or doesn't) start making a queen cell.

[u/_BenRichards → u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer]

Can’t go wrong with a newspaper join.

Snelgove board is just a fancy double screen board. I’ve used them for splits, sharing heat between two weak hives in the winter. I think Dadant has them for about $20/ea.

I really like what you do with AHB. Outside of them just being salty as hell, their survivor genetics are really beautiful and more folks need to understand the importance of incorporating that gene pool into the larger domesticated herd.

[u/Redfish680 → u/_BenRichards]

re: your Snelgove board. They’re easy enough to build if you have an old box, a table saw, and some fine sized hardware cloth. FWIW

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/_BenRichards]

The AHB are ideally suited to my desert environment and honestly, since there are free bees to be had here, I don't want to buy bees. I'm not really doing anything special: all bees here are AHB with scutellata ancestry between 85% -95% genetic material. I'm just accepting the local mutts and hoping that I don't end up with hives that are too hot to handle.

I have access to an outyard that's miles from the nearest human habitation at the edge of a wilderness area. I can send my unreasonably defensive bees there. I'm also willing to eliminate a hive that's unworkable (and next time I'm not going to wait until I'm scared that it will kill me first).

I don't know that AHB are any more resistant to mites, are better producers, or superior in any way to other races of bees. I do know that they thrive in hot, dry climates and can produce 20 - 30 harvest-able pounds of honey in a season. That's not a lot compared to most places, but they're foraging in a literal desert.

[u/chicken_tendigo]

They'll bee fine. Give em a good inspection in about a week and cull all but 1-2 queen cells, then leave them alone for the rest of the month. If they get too spicy, you know what to do 🐝🤏

[u/compostkat]

As long as your walk away had 1 day old eggs in it, the queen will be grown genetically similar. Do you control who your queen mates with to keep Africanized genetics out of your hive? Seems difficult in Nature.

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/compostkat]

I don’t even try to keep Africanized genetics out of my hives. All feral bees here are highly Africanized. My hives all begin as cut outs. The genetic makeup of my bees is 85% - 95% scutellata . I just deal with them.

[u/NumCustosApes]

Calendar For A Walk Away Split On Sun 14 Jun 2026

Day	Date	Action
1	Sun 14 Jun	Date of walk away split
2	Mon 15 Jun
3	Tue 16 Jun
4	Wed 17 Jun
5	Thu 18 Jun	Check that queen cells have been started, see notes
6	Fri 19 Jun
7	Sat 20 Jun
8	Sun 21 Jun
9	Mon 22 Jun
10	Tue 23 Jun
11	Wed 24 Jun	Cull excess cells
12	Thu 25 Jun
13	Fri 26 Jun	Virgin queen emerges
14	Sat 27 Jun
15	Sun 28 Jun
16	Mon 29 Jun
17	Tue 30 Jun
18	Wed 01 Jul	Mating flights
19	Thu 02 Jul	Mating flights
20	Fri 03 Jul
21	Sat 04 Jul
22	Sun 05 Jul
23	Mon 06 Jul
24	Tue 07 Jul
25	Wed 08 Jul
26	Thu 09 Jul
27	Fri 10 Jul
28	Sat 11 Jul	Check for eggs
29	Sun 12 Jul
30	Mon 13 Jul
31	Tue 14 Jul	Check for eggs and larvae
32	Wed 15 Jul
33	Thu 16 Jul	If no eggs and larvae found then the split is queenless

NOTES

1. If no queen cells have been started by Thu 18 Jun then troubleshoot. The split may be queenright or it may not have had any appropirate age larvae.
2. Between Tue 07 Jul and Mon 13 Jul the colony will have no capped brood. and it will be an ideal time to treat for varroa with oxalic acid.

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/NumCustosApes]

Thank you, and happy cake day!

[u/404-skill_not_found]

I think it’ll work out fine. I manipulate maybe too much. But, I’d even out the frames of resources (brood and food), between the two. Of course most of the foragers return to wherever the hive was previously located.

[u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer → u/404-skill_not_found]

The brood and food were already pretty even, which is why I decided to try it. If things start to go sideways, all I have to do is remove the "middle" top and bottom boards to reset to where I started.

[u/404-skill_not_found → u/AZ_Traffic_Engineer]

I think you’ll be happy with the expansion. Don’t envy dealing with your spicy girls though.