Splits in the same yard

[sc-bee]

How do you deal with splits when you have only one yard ( as is the situation with a friend). I realize you put the old queen with the new split to simulate swarming. What is the best way to keep bees from going back to old hive. Either piece you move away seems bees would try and return.

Just try and shake alot of nurse bees and then put a branch in front of new nuc moved away as far as possible from old location? Then of course if you want it back with your other colonies and say it is across the yard you have another moving issue (three feet at the time).

Maybe I am making more of an issue out of this than it is :-D. I have an alternate yard so that's where I go with it.

By the way my beekeeper friends nuc is in my yard :-D!!!

[pdmattox]

If you only had the one yard I would make up the nuc and make it extra strong by dumping extra bees in it. Keep the queen in the original hive. You can now set the nuc off to the side. If numbers in the nuc drop down then you can switch places with the nuc and a strong hive for bit.

[sc-bee]

If I leave the queen in the original hive will the bees think they have swarmed? I thought the whole idea was to change the pheromone scent. I am taking splits due to swarm cells now not walk aways.

[pdmattox]

Yes that sounds like it will work.

[JP]

Steve, you want to move the mated queen into a new set up, so they think they have swarmed.

Make splits with some of those swarm cells, and as for as drifting you'll have some of that to contend with but as Dallas has pointed out and you, switch locations for added numbers and do the branch re-orientation trick.


...JP

[Brian D. Bray]

I only have 1 bee yard so I do all my splits there.  If I'm swarm prevention splitting I move the parent hive and the queen to a different location a few feet or yards away.  The foragers return to the queenless split boosting its population, which is needed while the hive develops and hatches a new queen.
If I'm doing an increase split, I take a frame from each hive in the yard and place it into the split box and place it somewhere in the bee yard.  I will often make more than 1 increase split at a time after the heavy May-June flow.