2nd step of Snelgrove II modified split

[Jay Prunty]

I just examined my 2 hives for the 2nd step of the Snelgrove II modified split. A couple of observations. The parent colony (I found the queen, she is laying eggs) had the swarm cells removed, but now had a supersedure cell.

What I’m concerned with is the artificial swarm colony had 3 swarm cells (1 open, 2 closed). No queen was present, no eggs. The brood location that had hatched since the split was mainly filled with nectar and pollen. Given the old parent colony has a nice supersedure queen cell, should I try the Snelgrove II modified split method again with the queen, and these new supersedure cells as a new parent colony, and move the current supersedure cell into a new artificial swarm colony?

Thanks

Jay

[Gerald Przybylski]

Wally said the process is guided by the swarm organizer bees,  and they are field bees.  

The strategy is to keep the swarm organizer bees separated from any Queen Cells they 
want to control for a couple of weeks.  That is,  until the swarm organizer bees ages out.   
Once the swarm organizer bees age out the likelihood of swarming disappears. 

Wally's recipe says swap the mother colony back, and take out any swarm cells the queenless half of the split produced. 

His recipe assumes the queenless half will make poor quality queens, but he says, if the look great, swap them into the colony you swap the original queen out of. 

Unless you have a good reason to do something different, my gut says follow the recipe. 

That being said,  we're free to try things out, and make mistakes.   
What we try may or may not have an affect on the outcome. (namely the goal is to prevent swarming for the season)
If the strategy fails, the worst that can happen is we get a swarm,
and realize we did something wrong.   Lesson learned. 

that's my 2¢