Hello,
first year beek here (East central Florida).
I have one hive and can not believe how much I enjoy it.
Ultimately I want 3. In the spring I intend to split and create my second hive.
I am more interested in the bees than a honey harvest. We have had a strong fall
flow here and I assume that will be the norm. If I split next spring will I be able to split
the same hive a second time in the early fall if I have strong spring and fall flows ?
Second question :
I just got my bees this summer. The fall flow filled the deep bottom and a medium super.
Even though the fall flow was over I put another med super on because the deep and med were 100%
full. It was/is late fall. If I had not put the 2nd super on would the bees have wanted to swarm because
they were out of space even though the flow is over ?
Thanks many times over for your replies.
Mike
Bees will often swarm when out of room, and adding a super may alleiviate some of that (congestion), but ultimately, if they didn't draw any of the foundation out, it probably didn't do a whole lot. if they are not drawing foundation and not bringing in pollen/nectar, then you probably don't need it, they just have more room to defend. But make sure that you are ready with it when they are bringing in more stores.
Actually, you can theoretically split your hive into a lot of small hives right in the spring. You have a bigger issue with Small Hive Beetle (shb) so that may not be as much of an option, but the florida beeks can comment more on that. The small hives can take the most advantage of the best nectar flows to build up. You can probably split again in the fall if your winters are warm enough.
Read read read...you are just scratching the surface....Typically, you end up with about 10x as many hives as you wanted originally :-D (just so you know what happens)
http://bushfarms.com/bees.htm
Rick
Best case you might get five splits. Worst case you'll get none and it will barely pull along. Probably, you'll get one good split and maybe two. Listen to the bees.
Mike,
There are a lot of good beekeepers on this site that will be glad to guide you with splits. If you could find you a mentor it would be great. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Thanks Red