thinking about splitting trouble hive

Kathyp · May 24, 2007, 07:11:24 PM

i'm thinking that i won't get any honey from that hive that i had to swap boxes on. wondering if i should just split it. there is plenty of brood of all stages. i can start another hive and let them raise their own queen if i get at it soon.

doak · May 24, 2007, 09:17:18 PM

If you have a hive with plenty of bees, and a good nector flow I see nothing wrong with splitting.
About mid June when My main honey is over, I'm fixing to start slinging bee boxes every which way :roll:
Just kidding. Fixing to get ready to make up 6 to 8 nuc's and try one of the Queen rearing kits.
Any suggesting's on which one I should get?
Every thing I have needs requeening this year.
doak

Understudy · May 24, 2007, 10:46:07 PM

You have a hive that sounds very good for a divide.
Please do not forget to force a reorientation on the hives by placing some branches in front of the entrance.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

Kathyp · May 25, 2007, 12:27:35 AM

doak, MB is the guy to ask about queen kits and such. i just plan on letting them raise one in the hive from the eggs and brood i give them.

understudy, thanks for the reminder. i probably would not have thought about it :-)

doak · May 25, 2007, 12:42:08 AM

Kathyp, thanks.
On the spliting, I try to find the queen and have her in the hive I move,
Take about half the frames of eggs/brood with the bees on. Make sure to get a frame with eggs, and one with almost all capped brood. Devide the frames with honey and pollen about even.
Put your new hive in the old location, and the queen with her group in the new location. There will be plenty of house bees turn field bees in a short time.
This way the oreintation is not a problem, the new hive will have plenty field bees and the house bees you have on the brood frames will be enough to take care of things.
Or you may know a better way.
doak

heaflaw · May 25, 2007, 01:51:15 AM

For what it's worth, my experience has been that it will probably make a good hive for honey this season. I have had hives that were slow to take off early on, but later made a lot of surplus. I would not split it. Instead I would move half the brood/honey up and when it is warm enough, open up the brood nest. I seems like splitting it would cause a major loss of the honey crop for you this year.

Shizzell · May 26, 2007, 09:17:22 AM

hearflaw, i would have to disagree with you. One of my strongest hives (I left them all their stores last year as an experiment) I split once already. It needs to be split again this weekend but since I have no extra boxes, it'll have to wait till next. Probably 3 weekends after that I will have to split again. I still expect 2 full supers from the strongest hive. However, none for the others, I will probably let them have their stores again this winter, and then triple all of my hives again. (Wow thats a lot of equip)

Jake

Michael Bush · May 26, 2007, 09:49:00 AM

>Fixing to get ready to make up 6 to 8 nuc's and try one of the Queen rearing kits.
Any suggesting's on which one I should get?

I have a Jenter from Brushy Mt. and am very pleased with it. Actually I have four of them. :) I raise a lot of queens with them.

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