Artificial Swarm and Honey Load

[Gscot]

Done my first AS last year as far as i could see it was a case of separating the Queen from most of the brood and leave the Queen with the flying bees.Last year was a bad year for honey loads what i was wondering which Colony after the AS was likely to produce a honey crop. The one with the Queen has all the flying bees and is going to deminish untill the new brood has hatched and flying. The other one has the bulk of the brood but no flying bees and has to produce a mated Queen "Will any produce a good honey crop?"

[Black Comb]

A couple of thoughts.
1. When you carry out the AS put the parent colony about 3 feet to one side of the AS. After 7 days move the PC to the other side of the AS. The flying bees that have developed in PC in the 7 days will return to the AS, thereby boosting the AS.

2. The AS will initially have no brood to rear so will concentrate on foraging.

3. You should get some honey (in a normal) season off the As. One way of boosting this is to unite the 2 colonies before the main flow. Usually keep the new queen as raised by the PC.

[masterbk]

The 7 days moving to the other side should only be carried out if the queen cells left in the PC are all unsealed (most people reduce them to one good unsealed cell if they don't plan to use the PC for making up nukes etc). If there are any sealed queen cells in the pC then you risk the virgin Queen emerging within that time and flying into the AS on return from an orientation flight (they sometimes do go out on a flight within hours of emergence).