Need advice on splits

Chanticleer48 · February 17, 2015, 10:55:56 AM

Need some advice on splits.....In a perfect world I would make a split and have a freshly mated queen ready to place in the queenless hive, but this is the real world and I do not have any freshly mated queens. So, what would be best: make the split and place the old queen in the new hive and let the old hive make a new queen....or, make the split leave the queen in the old hive and allow the new hive to make a queen.

Opinions?

gww · February 17, 2015, 11:20:16 AM

I know nothing and do not have bees yet so wait for more experianced advise. Here goes anyway. I would think the new hive bees would go back to the old hive with out moving the queen with it. The old hive is already used to its location and would be more likely to stay and make a queen. I could be all wet though.
gww

Chanticleer48 · February 17, 2015, 11:41:20 AM

I plan on moving the new hive about 5 miles to another site.

hjon71 · February 17, 2015, 11:45:13 AM

By removing the old queen you simulate a swarm. A natural process for the bees.

Michael Bush · February 17, 2015, 11:59:24 AM

>Need some advice on splits.....

I would split them and not worry at all about where the queen is unless I happen to see her. If I happen to see her, I'd put her in the new location.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm

GSF · February 18, 2015, 05:59:51 AM

Chanticleer; You're not thinking about splitting now are you? Make sure you have plenty of drones flying. If not you'll loose half of your hive and/or end up with laying workers.

If your hives are in the same yard the foragers will most likely be the ones who may return to the hive. The house bees would have never ventured out and would orient to that location.

Chanticleer48 · February 18, 2015, 09:21:10 AM

I don't want to split right now because of how crazy our weather has been, but I have swarm cells in one hive, one cell is capped, lots of drone brood and drones flying....we have had several members in our bee club to have swarms already, two last week and one this week. So, I may not have a choice.

sterling · February 18, 2015, 11:59:44 AM

They verywell may split themselfs if they have capped queen cells and get a warm day.

GSF · February 19, 2015, 07:54:33 AM

agreed, I didn't know they were that far along.

capt44 · February 19, 2015, 12:53:08 PM

I would do a walk away split as Michael Bush said. You don't really have to know where the queen is at the time for the queenless hive will make supercedure queen cells. Fact is you can go back a few hours later and tell which box is queenless for the bees will be louder in the queenless hive. If you have a couple of frames with swarm cells put a frame in each box.

Michael Bush · February 19, 2015, 03:00:49 PM

>...but I have swarm cells in one hive, one cell is capped...

They may have already swarmed... usually they swarm right after the first cell is capped. I'd split them and make sure each split has a queen cell.

Chanticleer48 · February 19, 2015, 03:17:37 PM

Thanks for the advice.

OldMech · February 19, 2015, 11:47:32 PM

Quote from: Michael Bush on February 19, 2015, 03:00:49 PM
>...but I have swarm cells in one hive, one cell is capped...

They may have already swarmed... usually they swarm right after the first cell is capped. I'd split them and make sure each split has a queen cell.

Exactly.. you DO have queens available if that is the case!

johng · February 21, 2015, 03:21:06 PM

If I'm just making one split from each hive I will move the queen and a couple frames of bees and move them into a nuc box. Put the nuc box in the exact location where the big donor hive was sitting. Move the big hive over or to another hive stand in the yard if you have one. This will allow the little nuc to collect all the foragers from the big hive. The big hive should have plenty of brood and bees, they can make a good queen, and they can afford to loose a the foragers. If you do it the other way around and move the nuc to another spot in the same yard you may loose too many bees out of the nuc to keep it going. That is the easiest way to make a nuc and leave it in the same yard. If your moving the nucs to another yard there are multiple options on how to make up the nucs.

sterling · February 21, 2015, 05:14:34 PM

Quote from: johng on February 21, 2015, 03:21:06 PM
If I'm just making one split from each hive I will move the queen and a couple frames of bees and move them into a nuc box. Put the nuc box in the exact location where the big donor hive was sitting. Move the big hive over or to another hive stand in the yard if you have one. This will allow the little nuc to collect all the foragers from the big hive. The big hive should have plenty of brood and bees, they can make a good queen, and they can afford to loose a the foragers. If you do it the other way around and move the nuc to another spot in the same yard you may loose too many bees out of the nuc to keep it going. That is the easiest way to make a nuc and leave it in the same yard. If your moving the nucs to another yard there are multiple options on how to make up the nucs.

If you are wanting a honey crop you don't move the donor hive. You leave it as strong as you can. you shake enough extra nurse bees into the nuc to take care of the queen and the brood you pulled and leave it in the same yard if you want.

Packrat3wires · February 24, 2015, 10:31:22 PM

What about using a double screen to separate top hive and bottom hive. It won't take very long to see queen cells in the hive body with no queen. Would seem to make it easier to do a nuc or a split.