I too did a preemptive split in early Sept but I did not ignore the split for 4 weeks as the text book said. Starting with 3 frames: 1 egg/larvae, 1 capped brood and 1 honey/pollen into 8 frames box plus shake 1-2 frames of nurse bees.
I would open on the day 4th to knock out any capped Queen cells and leave all opened Q-cells there… On day 12-14, make sure I add 1 capped brood frame plus 1 capped/food frame from my 2 hives … On day 18th add another capped brood frame, then another capped brood frame on 24th. Come back on 28th to check for eggs… Or add another capped brood frame… Try to mark the young Queen, may be un-sucess as so many bees cramping into 6-7 frames there. I may come back a few days until all spread out 8 frames evenly to search for the young Queen to look for her…
The whole process removed 6-7 frames out within 4 weeks period and it made the mother hives steadily expand. Last season I did the split from 1 hive and my mother hive gone bonker with nectars storing in the flow frames in the same time. I ended up splitted it 2 more times (4 hives in the end) and still produced 43kgs of honey. This year I came out of winter with 2 strong hives and did same thing but I delay the 2nd split hive for 2 weeks after the 1st split done… This year I am planning to split once on each hive only, as soon as my split hive built up, I will merge back to run a double brood boxes hive to boost the hive population and filling up the flow super quickly I hope! So far they are pumping in nectars into the flow frames daily with a single brood box below, the Flow super gets heavier and heavier each time I lifted and I will soon unable to lift it off as a whole.
I do use foundationless frames regardless of any dis-encourgement as I believe the natural balance do bring positive effects, you can slow them down a little as @JeffH said with foundationless but I think the bees will draw out natural combs as quick as anything else if they need to get it done asap, I let the bees make drones as they need to, as long as I maintain a strong hive most times with frames rotation, pest should be under control…
I did inspect mostly every 7 days, sometime 10 days, one time up to 12 days and always be carefully search for Q-cells… My hives also build up heaps of Q-cups and I usually knocked them out with my J tool to ensure I can see everything inside, all are emptied so far and I understand it’s part of being Spring activities.
It’s very common for a 2nd year hive to get swarm so don’t feel bad if that happened. We all live and learn. The key is to understand what inside the hive after each inspection, observing the changes weekly by recording the statistic of individual frame, think about it when you analyse later on, take notes then take appropriate action at the next or on the spot during inspection.
You can always rotate the frames forth and back between 2 hives of new and old ones to maintain a balance on population and strength. I always alternate the brand new foundationless frames between 2 drawn out frames and never had to do any alignment once I added it. The bees just drawn out straight down perfectly to my surprise given a plain basic frame, without any assistance like wax, starter wood strip nor wax foundation, etc… They would do whatever required for the Queen to lay as soon as you give them an empty frame and they will work out the gaps without any wonkiness.
