?'s Making Splits

[Stingtarget]

When making a split, which is better?  Taking a few frames of bees / brood from a strong colony and placing them into a Nuc with a new queen. Or, placing them in the center of a ten frame hive body?

[Michael Bush]

If the nuc has a queen (and is not having to rear one) and three frames of brood in all stages, it will take off pretty quickly and you may as well put them in the ten frame box.  If you are letting the nuc raise a queen, I'd put them in a five frame box as they will be three weeks behind by the time they rear the queen.

[Stingtarget]

Thanks Michael!  In order to speed things up a little I'll be ordering a queen for my split this time.  May purchase a 5 frame Nuc Box anyway just to have around in case of a swarm.  As I am just beginning to built up my collection, I have very little woodenware laying around that is not in use.

[Billy The Beekeeper]

 Yea i fully agree with Michael on this he seems to be the Genius in this business :D                      :mrgreen:

[annette]

Michael Bush

I finally got into my hive today, since last Tuesday when I found 2 queen cups. guess what?? I found a totally completed peanut shaped cell - guess that is the queen cell. They are making queen cups all over the place so I guess they are getting ready to leave. they seemed more agitated than usual this evening, although they left me alone. More buzzing noise.

I would like to do a split if it is not to late. I can do one tomorrow morning around 11:00am. Now tell me, I will set up a bottom board, one large size super with 10 new frames(that is all I have) and I guess I will have sugar water made up ahead?? I will place this box a few feet away from my original hive and get down to the bottom brood super and start switching out the frames?? I know the queen is in the very bottom super because when I checked on the upper supers today, all they were making was honey, mixed with pollen. No brood or very little brood in upper supers.

How many frames do I transfer into the new box?  And do I place the frames of brood right next to each other, or do one frame brood and bees and one frame empty?? I will try to place the queen in this new box if possible and if I am understanding you, I need to cut out all other queen cells in this box as long as I have my queen in the new box???

Now in my old original hive, I would have left at least one queen cell (that is all I found today) all the other queen cups??

Please let me know asap. would this split actually ward off a swarm???

What if I cannot find my queen. Will I just leave her in the original box and then place that queen cell in the new box??

Thanks
Annette from Placerville California

[Kirk-o]

Oh Yeah make a split or two
kirk-o

[Kirk-o]

Yes keep the brood frames together 2 or 3 frames of brood pollen honey
like the brood nest in your hive you can also go read michael bush's site and read about splits
kirk-o

[Michael Bush]

>Please let me know asap. would this split actually ward off a swarm???

You can never tell for sure, but if you depopulate the hive enough you probably will.  Make sure the split(s) have the queen or a capped queen cell.  I tend to put every frame that has any queen cells in it's own nuc, so I sometimes make five or six because I want the queens.  They need at least one frame of brood, one frame of honey with some pollen or a frame of honey and one of pollen and shake in one extra frame of bees.  But one frame will languish a while, before it gets going, so if you want to speed it along give it two or three frames of brood and an extra frame of honey.

If you really want to do just one split,  Then make sure both have a queen cell.  If you see the queen, put her in the split, but I wouldn't waste too much time finding her.  Spilt the resource down the middle (One frame of brood for you and one frame of brood for you, one frame of honey for you and one frame of honey for you...) Shake some of those brood frames into the new split so when the drifting occurs they will balance out.  I'd shake about every other one, but don't shake frames with queen cells on them.  Brush them.  Shaking a queen cell can damage the queen.

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