How do these things happen?

[Kurt Bower]

I made 10 splits the other day and requeened 3 days later. I like to manually release my queens so I went back yesterday to take care of it in the rain. I have a beach umbrella that I use for shelter so it really wasnt too bad.
I went to go into one of my splits and noticed that the queen cage (JZBZ) was lying on the entrance to the hive! Now I know that I did not inadvertantly requeen it so poorly as to not even bother to place the queen inside the hive.
Did the bees drag the cage out? Seems like quite an accomplishment to me. THe real accomplishment was the fact that attendant bees had stayed with her the entire time, rain and all, and she was doing just fine. I released her and watched her walk into the hive as if she had been on vacation and was glad to finally get home!
How do these things happen?

[Wally]

OLD AGE.....

[red rambler]

Morning Guys,

So it is not to late to do splits? I have 2 of six that are going gang busters in terms of numbers. The three captured swarms have taken some time to build up dues to the loss of last years drawn comb while in storage by those ugly little critters that love comb.


Option: Remove brood from strong to weak

Option: Combine two "weaker" hive so I end up with five.

Option: do splits and combine.

Any other options?

Nice to have enough bees to manipulate