Overview: This is how I make my splits using double-screen boards. This procedure is intended to be maximum-certainty, with minimal visits. My life is too busy to guess, or to do things over.
Benefits of this process:
- Unattended release means Queen can start laying earlier.
- 1 less visit: You don't need to wait 24 hours after dequeening to introduce
- Forgiving: By introducing only to nurse bees, chance of rejection is minimized.
- By limiting introduction to one frame, it makes it easy to confirm presence and well being of released queen.
Downside:
- Procedure does not scale up well. You can only do as many concurrent splits as you have double-screen boards.
Equiment:
- Double Screened Board with entrance, aka "Snelgrove board", aka DSB.
- Empty nucleus hive, preferably 5 frame.
- 1 Caged queen.
- 5 frames of drawn comb.
- An empty hive body.
Procedure:
Ideally, this procedure should take two visits over four days.
1) Remove frames: Go through hive, remove frames one by one, and locate and remove: 5 frames of capped brood, 1 frame of queen, and 1 frame of uncapped brood. Set aside the frame of uncapped brood. Place the five frames of capped brood into your nuc. Knock the frame with the queen, dropping her into the nuc. .
2) Replace frames: Replace any frames you've removed in the search back into hive. As you replace each one, bang it over the nuc, dropping the bees into it. You want to get as many bees into the nuc as you can. Some will fly back to source hive, but many will stay with mom (the queen) in the nuc. Do not yet put the set-aside frame of uncapped brood back in hive.
3) Install Queen: After all frames (Except your single frame of uncapped brood)have been replaced in hive, place double-screen board on top of top hive body, with entrance facing back and up. Place your single frame of uncapped brood into this hive body. Open any covers on the sugar plugged exits. Affix queen cage to the comb, near the center. Should be near some open brood, but find a place to minimize damage.
4) Replace remaining woodenware over the hive body with queen. (Inner cover, hive top feeder, and outer cover).
5). Wait, Check: After 4-7 days, open hive, and verify that queen has been released. Ideally, she will be on the single comb, calmly interacting with the other bees. Remove the empty-hive body, and double screened board, and replace the frame into the top brood box. Be slow and gentle replacing the frame, so you don't roll the queen.
Explanation of process:
Normally, we'd wait 24 hours after removing a queen to install another, allowing hive recognize its queenless state. The DSB allows us to immediately install the new queen, but isolate her from foragers who may raise objection.
Most foragers on the comb of uncapped brood will leave during the frame-relocation to the empty super, and any remainders will eventually leave via the back entrance. Foragers won't otherwise think to come in through the back entrance. By the time (minutes) you install the queen on the comb, it should be mostly nurse-bees.
By the time the main part of the colony recognizes queen-absence, they'll also smell queen-presence in above the double screen board. The screen prevents physical access while at the same time allowing pheromonal familiarization.
The queen will likely be released by the nurse bees in a day or two. The nurse bees become her new attendants. If life delays you, and you take more than 4 days to return to check, she may even have started laying - meaning your delay didn't result in queen-delay.
Note: This same process can be used to introduce a queen to a queenless hive. Uncapped brood would need to be poached from another hive.
In this picture: Single frame of capped and uncapped brood, in an empty super, above DSB. Cage is in middle, with sugar-plug covers exposed and opened. Released queen in the middle, marked.
In this picture: Double Screen Board. Note single entrance on far end.
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