My first Split

Sean Kelly · June 25, 2007, 07:21:37 PM

Well I did it! I split my hive today! Followed some of the directions from Michael Bush's website for doing a split. My bees are doing extremely well and have tons of brood and food.
It's kinda funny to watch them come back home to find two hives now. They just buzz back and fourth, confused, not sure which one to go into.

I think I can already tell which hive is queenless. It's VERY aggressive! Is this normal? I had bees chase me across the yard and around my house. They've never been like that before.
I'm letting them make their own queen cause I'm curious of the process and would like to see it first hand.

I'm gunna switch the hives around tonight to help counter the drifting per Mr. Bush's directions. Looks really neat over there with two hives now. I'll post pics as soon as I can get close to the hives again without making them mad.

Sean Kelly

Sean Kelly · June 25, 2007, 07:49:21 PM

By w7spk, shot with DSC-P72. at 2007-06-25

Kirk-o · June 25, 2007, 10:15:20 PM

Well they look good good luck
kirko

Sean Kelly · June 26, 2007, 05:12:09 PM

It seems the girls prefer the hive with the new screened bottom board over the old original one. I swapped the hives around to confuse the returning field bees, but they seem to keep coming back to the SBB hive. I'm just guessing, but the queen must be in that hive.

How long will it take before the queenless hive begins to make queen cells? Any other tips to help with the drift of bees?

This is the first warm (80 degree) and dry day we've had since the blackberries started to bloom and the bees are BUSY! Girls are coming and going like bullets from a gun from both the queenright and queenless hive.

So far so good...

I like the screened bottom board I got from Brushy Mountain so much I just ordered another one yesterday for the other hive. I also finally ordered my first bee-suit from Betterbee yesterday too. My old Tyvek painters suit is starting to get wore out, bees are somehow getting inside it and I'm getting tired of stings. Not bad though, 3 months in a disposable one time suit. :-)

Sean Kelly

DayValleyDahlias · June 26, 2007, 06:55:38 PM

Hey Sean,

Look really nice...What doe you have in eachbox? I mean...brood in each bottom box, what do youhave in the supers? Sorry for the questions, I am new...

Thanks

Kathyp · June 26, 2007, 07:13:00 PM

i had a big drift out of my split. that was after the queen went home. i requeened the split rather than wait for them to raise their own and added some bees. that seemed to take care of things and they look really good now. next time i do a split, i think i'll move them farther from the parent hive.

my split did not seem to mind having bees added. i would think that you could do the same if your split gets to lite. you could swap out a frame of honey or drawn comb with bees, and leave the brood behind. if you don't want to do that, you can just make a nuc out of them until they build up. the weather is finally getting better, so i don't think you have to worry to much about them getting cold. just about them not having enough numbers to bring in food and tend brood. and...you can feed to build them up faster. i have a weak hive that i started feeding again today and i put pollen patties back on everybody last week.

Sean Kelly · June 27, 2007, 08:16:35 PM

Quote from: DayValleyDahlias on June 26, 2007, 06:55:38 PM
Hey Sean,

Look really nice...What doe you have in eachbox? I mean...brood in each bottom box, what do youhave in the supers? Sorry for the questions, I am new...

Thanks

The bottom boxes are brood and some honey stores. The top mediums have undrawn foundation, just extra room for them to grow. It's up to the bees what they decided to put up there. Some people have good luck with all deep brood nests, some have good luck with all medium brood nests. I thought I'd mix it up a little. lol.

Still unsure of when I should see queen cells built in the queenless hive. I'm afraid of disturbing that hive, don't want to make them any more agitated. Never realized how testy a hive can get when you take away their queen!

The drift seems to have evened out pretty good. I haven't checked inside the hives to see the difference yet, but it looks like an even number of bees are coming and going from each hive now.

Can't wait until my other screened bottom board comes. Makes it super easy to check for mites. I left the plastic sheet on when I did the split and forgot about it. Went back 2 hours later and the screen was just COVERED with pollen and wax scales, not to mention a bunch of other debris. I saw these little tiny bugs, about the size of a needle head, crawling around. Didn't have a magnifying glass with me to get a better look. They were sorta reddish in color. Mites? Hive beetles? They sorta looked like baby spiders after they hatch. Only found 2 on there, but it still made me curious.

Really excited about my new beesuit! Thank you Betterbee for carrying "Big & Tall" bee suits! I thought I was gunna be stuck in a Tyvek suit forever!

Sean Kelly

Kathyp · June 27, 2007, 08:30:34 PM

sounds like a couple of mites. go to google images and search varroa mite. you'll get some good pictures.

sean · June 27, 2007, 08:43:15 PM

>Any other tips to help with the drift of bees?

I did some splits recently moving the new hives a couple yards away and what i did was to place branches at the entrances ofthe new hives, not enough to obsurethe entrance but enough force them to re-orient to the new hive (cant remember where i got that tidbit from but it has worked for me)
Incidentally installed 6 queens yesterday & went back today and released them all seems to be ok

bhough · June 27, 2007, 08:48:26 PM

Sounds like fun Sean. Good luck!
b