Big hive split

Wish me luck, today was the day I split my big hive, the 2015 swarm that overwintered beautifully twice, excellent producers, nice gluey bees make lots of propolis AND last summer they killed 2 cutouts and 3 splits with bought queens as soon as I got them set up.

So today, I divided them. 2 mediums on a screened bottom board with a feed jar on top, closed up. they have 4 medium frames of brood capped and uncapped, pollen but almost no nectar (I held off feeding for a day or so while I got the yard work done in anticipation) Hit at 6 pm when most workers home so hopefully some ended up in the pair of mediums, although I can switch their position and pick some up when I can open them. No idea which half got the queen, the deep also had 4 or 5 frames of brood capped and uncapped. again they had pollen, no nectar. The drought is becoming a dearth.

Gave both a feed jar, and my little nuc one as well.

Tomorrow evening, if I don't get it done tonight, I need to mount #8 hardware cloth cones on the diesel tank hives, to lead the bees out to the deep boxes in the truck bed in front of them, and not allow them to return to their tank. Had to wait til we stabilized in warm weather, and they will be quite vulnerable to robbing, so I had to split the big one first. If I get the big pair stable I can move them to other bee yards, but the diesel tanks can't be moved, they weigh too much.

So wish me luck.