Dumb Dumb Dumb

Romahawk · May 18, 2006, 07:44:58 PM

I think I done a dumb thing this morning. I had set up two new boxes to do what I believe is called on here a walk away split. I took the two hive bodies apart and put a new box on the bottom hive body and put the top hive body on a new bottom board and added the other new box I had made up on it. So far so good now I sat back and contemplated the raising of a new queen by the queen less part of the split. As I sat there watching the bees I had a terrible thought. Earlier in the morning I was watching what I thought was orientation flights that ended in lots of bees in the air and then seeing them go straight up above the trees and disappear. After some thought I decided what I had really seen was a swarm that didn't land where I could see it.

Now my question is will the split still work or should I recombine the two hive bodies with brood? If so can I just put them back together or has the queen less part already started a queen cell that will make recombining a bigger problem than just letting the split go and see if it works out OK?

TwT · May 18, 2006, 08:07:30 PM

first thing I do when I do a walk-away split is make sure both hive bodies have a frame of eggs or day old brood for both hive bodies weather I find the queen or not, most times I dont even look for the queen just frame with eggs or young larva for each hive body, by doing this first it fixes both senerio's, swarming or queen-less hive with no larva... this is just what I do but i'm not experienced like a few more on this site... they will add some good info I'm sure!!!!!

Michael Bush · May 19, 2006, 12:49:04 AM

A swarm will certainly weaken them somewhat. How much varies from swarm to swarm. Sometimes you can't really tell a difference and sometimes there are hardlly any bees left.

Info on swarming: http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm

Info on splits: http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm

Romahawk · May 19, 2006, 09:02:11 AM

Thanks for the advice guys. For now they are on their own as it's 47 degrees here and a nice little thunder boomers keep rolling through. Probably the same stuff tomorrow, just hope it doesn't chill the brood so much that I loose one half of the split. This is the second year after getting bees again and I only have the one hive, I need to get with an old time bee keeper who lives about 20 miles from me and see if he might have a couple of nucs he can spare.

Romahawk · June 06, 2006, 12:38:40 PM

Well I think my little attempt at making a split from a hive that had just swarmed was a bigger mistake than I first thought. It has been 19 days since I did this and when I checked the hives today neither had any brood. The one half has loads of bees and has collected a full deep of honey and the other just sits there not doing much at all except for a small amount of honey it has collected and stored in the empty brood cells.

I have looked both boxes over pretty good and I see no queen in either box. Is it to late or to early to declare them queenless and requeen?

Joe · June 06, 2006, 04:10:10 PM

I can't be specific and I could be wrong but I believe that for a hive to raise a new queen and for that queen to mate and begin laying takes longer than 19 days. I don't think it's too late for you to consider purchasing a new queen for the queenless hive, but if the queenless hive is really weak it may be worth considering recombining your two hives into one using the newspaper method. If you do indeed buy a new queen don't direct release her, place the queen cage in the hive without the candy exposed and come back in a few minutes to see if your bees are being aggressive towards her, they may be biting the wire cage or trying to sting her. If they are being aggressive and you see no eggs then you may have a virgin queen running around. Remove the queen cage and store her in a safe place, remove the virgin queen and any other queen cells you may see and in a few hours it should be safe to reinstall your newly purchased queen, expose the candy this time and allow the bees to release her on their own.

Romahawk · June 06, 2006, 04:39:48 PM

Thanks Joe.... There is one other thing that I noticed, there is no loud buzzing or roar coming from either hive. They seem to be going about business as usual. Only difference I see other than no brood is that the one half which was the top box of the two brood chamber is a lot weaker.

Brian D. Bray · June 06, 2006, 07:32:35 PM

I'd wait a week then if no eggs or larva can be found I'd recombine and get a frame of brood from somewhere to let them raise a queen if both lack brood. If one has eggs and larva and the other doesn't I'd still combine them.
Your objective was obviously more hives rather than strong production hives. A rule of thumb (rules of thumb are often broken or have multiple exceptions) is to split before mid-April (artificial swarm) or after labor day when the objective is to get it ready to over winter so that yu have more hives in the spring.

Romahawk · June 13, 2006, 09:15:47 PM

HUSTON WE HAVE IGNITION............. Well in spite of my bungling the bees knew what to do. Both halves of the split have really nice brood patterns. I can't see the queens but from the looks of the brood they must be pretty good ones. Not going to mess with them for awhile and see what happens. The one half remains a bit weaker than the other but I do believe it will have time to catch up and maybe even make some spare honey. The stronger half has the deep on it nearly full and capped with honey that was there before the swarm and now they are drawing in the second deep I just put on.

Never let your education interfere with your learning" --Samuel Clemens