Originally Posted by
Adam
I've never done brood and a half... It might be an opportunity to take away the 'half' if she wants two colonies.
I would be inclined to have two broodless supers between the queen below and the brood and a half above, just to give a better chance of reducing the queen pheromone enough. The other option is to simply do an artificial swarm (a split) with the queen and some brood frames on the old site and the super and another brood box on the new site a metre or two away with some open brood from which the split can make a queen. Then ensure that the remaining queencell is in the brood box, put a queen excluder between the super and broodbox and the brood will have emerged from the super before the queen starts to lay. (Can you tell that I don't like the idea of a brood and half?!). If the owner wants to maximise honey with the old queen, once the 'split' has a queencell, the super could be put back on the old site where the queen is and the brood will emerge and strengthen it.
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