Last Saturday I checked out the state of the colonies and 3 of them where so strong, I had to split out a few frames of brood to assure they will not be inclined to swarm away from me any time soon.
I did what is called a “walk-away split” where I only take one or two frames of very young brood, make sure there is no queen on them, and move it over to a new, empty hive box. I then add 2-3 frames of honey and pollen to the mix, then set them out to make a new queen, collect honey and pollen and eventually make a new colony by them-self. The Genes of the new colony will be very similar to the original one, but influenced by the genes the queen mates with during her maiden flight. She mates about 7-10 times, in mid air, with Drones from other colonies as well as from her own. It;s amazing and cool to see LINK.
Fingers crossed.
Stefan
A Jar of Honey San Jose 