Hello everyone,
Cdn beek here, going into my 3rd season. I have been battling with a very large hive for weeks now, trying to convince it not to swarm ... so far so good. Last weekend I made the decision to split it ... I've been waiting for mated queens and still waiting ... we have had a late spring, followed by alot of rain and cooler temperatures. I felt I simply couldn't wait any longer, I've been swapping frames with undrawn frames, added two honey supers and even added a third brood chamber ... still a few swarm cells. So the split was done, I now have a double brood chamber hive loaded with 50% drawn foundation, lots of honey frames, capped/uncapped brood. At the moment, there is very little activity at the moment. The new hive is situated in the same beeyard, so I'm sure some drifting back to the original hive has taken place. Question #1 How difficult is it going to be to introduce a queen to this new hive, after a week or two on their own? I did transfer a uncapped queen cell into this new hive, just to be safe. Question #2 Can I switch places with another hive in the same yard to capture the foragers from a stronger hive ... will they be accepted by the new hive or will there be a war? Thanks
I am told they will accept new field bees after you switch locations.
they will meld with almost any swarm. one swarm will combine with another some times.
At mid day if you move the booming hive and place the weakest colony in its place, the foragers will be readily accepted in with their loads of pollen and nectar and become part of that colony with little or no problem. This will indeed reduce the congestion that causes swarming. In fact, take a couple frames of capped brood, wiggleshake the nurse bees off and move them to that weaker colony.
A queen cell in your split will probably result in a queen faster than you can get a queen located, ordered, deliverd, introduced and laying.
If your brood boxes are getting plugged with capped frames of honey and there is no feed or antibiotics in them, consider extracting some of them or even uncapping and gravity draining them to give the bees some room.
Get some supers on! If your supers are mediums and your brood boxes are deeps, you can put on two supers and leave an empty slot in each to receive a frame of brood or honey. That will entice the bees up into the area of foundation that the bees otherwise might not think of as available space. Good luck
I don't think bees have the ability to deceive. If a bee shows up with robbing as its intentions the guard bees know it. If it shows up needing a place to live it will be welcomed.
Personally I would do this with that hive. So far I am a strong believer in the OTS system, it has worked excellently for me.:
http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/OTS.pdf (http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/OTS.pdf)
you still have time to do it up there, easily. you sorta already started it without knowing it, really, and you do not actually have to do it specifically as it directs. ie, you do not have to take 6 frames necessarily for the cell builder. and the dates as it says are for your area, they change. You also do not have top merge necessarily as it suggests either. It depends what you wish to accomplish really. remember a hive with 40,000 will produce more honey than two with 20,000 bees though, but two hives with two queens will lay twice as many brood, so, you decide what you want or need, brood or honey, extra queens or not/etc. and how much of a split you want to or need to do really. you do not need to notch if you have queen cells/etc so adapt to the situation.
Quote from: Better.to.Bee.than.not on June 19, 2014, 01:55:06 AM
Personally I would do this with that hive. So far I am a strong believer in the OTS system, it has worked excellently for me.:
http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/OTS.pdf (http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/OTS.pdf)
you still have time to do it up there, easily. you sorta already started it without knowing it, really, and you do not actually have to do it specifically as it directs. ie, you do not have to take 6 frames necessarily for the cell builder. and the dates as it says are for your area, they change. You also do not have top merge necessarily as it suggests either. It depends what you wish to accomplish really. remember a hive with 40,000 will produce more honey than two with 20,000 bees though, but two hives with two queens will lay twice as many brood, so, you decide what you want or need, brood or honey, extra queens or not/etc. and how much of a split you want to or need to do really. you do not need to notch if you have queen cells/etc so adapt to the situation.
I am going to try that in the spring, I have been studying the idea. I just split and split this year, but think its getting about time to shut down splitting, from what I read July is about the cuttoff here for open queen rearing with good success. I have been fortunate and gone 7-7. 2 Hives to 8. Im happy. G :chop: