Well, the last experiment was splitting the hive and seeing if they would re-queen themselves. In short, it failed. There were some queen cells made and the cells looked like they hatched and the bees deconstructed them and the hive was looking great. All the comb was nice and straight and the brood area was all cleaned up and waiting for eggs, which never appeared. So I waited an extra week to make sure that there was nothing going to happen, and it didn’t, so I combined the hives again. So now, I have 7 boxes and they are full of bees and yesterday there was lots of activity. I’ve also spaced 5 of the 7 boxes at 9 frames each. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up with some honey before the year is out!
I guess I’ll just do swarm management next spring by splitting again… Hopefully I’ll get a little honey next year.