We started this year with several 8 frame overwintered nucs from a local breeder (kirk webster). One of these has been doing markedly better than the others and has filled out to around 25 deeps at last check...20 of which is mostly brood frames. This year we are not too concerned with making honey. We are mostly interested in generating strong hives and more hives/nucs so as to try and insulate ourselves against total loss over the winter.....
Mr Webster breeds for treatment free, and that is the approach we plan to maintain...He and Michael Palmer(another vt breeder) are strong advocates of summer nucs, that are then overwintered to help offset losses. As I understand it the timing and growth rate of these nucs is also helpful in staying ahead of v-mites. Both of these gentlemen recommend mid-late july(on average) as the best time here in vt to start the nucs. They are breaking up poor/weak colonies into 4 frame units and then requeening from thier best colonies.
Obviously I don't have the number of colonies(yet) to follow their example precisely. What I was considering doing was pulling 4 frames and the queen from the strongest colony at the beginning of july and then allowing it to requeen itself...under the assumption that the larger colony would have better(more) resources.
Alternatively I could allow the nuc to raise it's own queen. If I started it in the beginning of July and all went well, I would have a new queen near end of July...but I was worried that the smaller nuc might peter out in numbers before a new queen was made,mated and laying.
the last option is to buy in a queen or cell for the split and wait until mid/late july. My only reluctance in going this route is I like the idea of self sufficiency. Also we waited a year to get these bees and want to keep their genetics as much as possible. And as I understand it breaking the brood cycle on a colony going into it's 2nd winter is a useful tool in keeping mite numbers manageable for the bees.
So my questions presently are:
Does the timing of these various plans seem reasonable to folks?
Are there any holes in my reasoning, or comparable options to consider?
Do I run a greater risk in asking the parent colony to requeen itself?
thanks for your thoughts
the problem with walk away splits is that you have about 6weeks before new brood emerges...and you have no backups for queens that dont mate properly.
if you can start with cells you will be ahead of the game. ill post more later when im at my computer...not my phone.
thanks deknow,
I would certainly appreciate more input when you have time. I had actually contacted you folks about lead time on a cell or two (Laurie got back to me yesterday).
I am aware of the delay caused in rearing/mating, and was definitely concerned about that....hence the asking about what might be realistic timing. And being the worrier I am, the chance of failure to successfully make and mate a new queen was definitely in the front of my list of concerns.....issues about mating are also a concern...we live up in the hills, pretty isolated, and I don't think anybody else within 3 miles is keeping bees...some neighbors had bees from Kirk as well but I think they have lost or moved the hives.
Genetics and the length of brood break were the main reasons I am thinking about "walk away" I would be more comfortable with it once we have another strong colony or the ability to generate several nucs. We are not looking for a big yard, just enough hives to be able to self maintain (at least mostly). At one point we were even considering breaking up the weaker hive (about 16-20 frames last week) into all nucs and buying queens for half or all (most likely from you all or Mike Palmer)....but we felt that might be too much too soon for where we are at now.
Your plan and timing sound fine. I do this kind of split all the time with high success rate, and use it deliberately for the delay in resuming brood rearing to reduce mite loads. Colonies are better at rearing queens than resource poor nucs, and if they are out of their first year, they are more likely to need the break.
The caveat is I live within a few miles of a big breeder who tries to saturate the area with drones. Everyone around me gets their bees from him, and the local beek density is much higher. So my queens always come back well mated. But I did some splits in my outyard in a really rural area with no benefit of drone saturation and they all reared well too.
Whether you should do this depends on your tolerance for risk and how much time you have to spend checking the splits. If you have lower drone density, you will have to check the laying pattern of the new queens to make sure you are happy with them. If they disappear on mating, or turn out bad layers, you'll have to spend more time recombining with the queenright splits.
If you are worried, then do fewer splits and make each larger. But I found that splitting is really rewarding and not that hard if you are calm and patient.