why not to split in july & other things learned today

[eri]

Went to the National Pollinator's Week local event today where I had 3 hours to watch bees on frames in a bee cage and ask a lot of questions. It was great -- the same event last year convinced me to get bees this spring. I am curious if others have such events this week; I've seen none posted.

Splits in July -- One beek had just about convinced me to try a split of my colony, started from a package late April. Then we checked with a State Inspector and his concern was that at this time of year there are frequently too few drones to mate with a newly emerged queen raised by the the queenless half of the split. With an introduced mated queen the splits should have plenty of time to build up winter stores -- if fed -- by October/November when we have our first freeze here in piedmont NC. I hadn't thought about a lack of drones, but remembered noticing how few there were last week when I inspected and how few I see now at the entrance.

Mite Check -- He also suggested doing a sugar-shake-in-a-jar varroa mite check, even though this is a new colony and others had said it was unnecessary because most packages are treated for mites before shipment. He demonstrated how to coax them gently into the test jar and alternately to shake some onto a piece of flexible plastic and then pour into the jar. Fewer bees flew when he coaxed them directly into a jar from the frame.

Top Bar/ Foundationless Hives -- Apparently not much interest around here. The inspector said he'd occasionally been called out to inspect one when it was new and never heard from the owners again, which (among other things) led him to believe they were unsuccessful. I'm stubborn enough to try anyway ;-)

Bee Cage -- The best part was seeing the various stages of brood, pollen, and honey on the frames in the bee cage. I've seen a gazillion photos but it isn't the same as having someone point out things real-time when they are doing the handling and I can concentrate on looking instead of not squishing or dropping bees. Each demo was 15 minutes or so. These were extremely calm bees and I learned some techniques for gentle smoking while the hive is open to get the bees to move from specific spots -- hadn't thought much about that, either.

Plants for Bees -- The County Ag Agent has 3 passions: honeybees, gardening, and photography. She had beautiful mounted photos of various pollinators on her plants and a dozen or so pots of currently blooming plants. She's still working on an extensive bee-plant database that now is a simple list but will eventually have links to photos, growing conditions, etc.

The event was held on the lawn beside a new food co-op in a small town. I am grateful to have these resources in my area! I hope I know enough by next year to participate as a presenter and share the buzz! Funny, honey has become the LEAST of my interest since I got the bees.

Best to everyone on this adventure!

[MrILoveTheAnts]

Wish the bees themselves knew why not to split in July. I just had the smallest swarm on to my neighbors trampoline. It was maybe 4 hand fulls of bees.

[Ross]

I don't know about Orange Co, CA, but here we have drones from March to November.  I'd be surprised if you don't. 

[Robo]

we have drones from March to November.  I'd be surprised if you don't. 

Same here in NY.  Now is the best time to be queen rearing here.

[eri]

All I can tell you about fewer drones here in piedmont NC (not CA) is that it is the general consensus. The weather here is about 2 weeks behind the weather in westernmost NC (mountains) and perhaps 3 weeks behind NY and NJ. In the box at the event we found only 2 drone cells and I saw no drones. I don't see them regularly on the landing board of my box anymore. And remember, I have only 1 colony, brand new from a package this year. Perhaps if there were several colonies in my immediate area the mating success (number of available drones) would increase exponentially with the number of colonies at hand. We had a week of 100+ degree temps in June and often 95+ since and now we are in drought conditiions. The only sure way to know, I suppose, would be to open the boxes and examine each frame to determine the particular conditions of this particular colony. He didn't say it couldn't be done, just that the success rate would likely be much lower than even 3 weeks ago. He also said the bees begin activity here as early as January and suggested a split in March.

I looked back at Linda's Bees blog and she collected swarms in March, April, and May in Atlanta. I looked through the swarm lists for 2 counties surrounding me and they were in April and May; the requests for removal after that were from walls, etc., implying the bees had been there for a while and the homeowners were just noticing. I'm the last to go with conventional wisdom but one of the first to go with data.

Now the questions are economics and probability. Will it be better to do a 'natural' split now and risk not having a mated queen in one, or purchase a mated queen now (if they are available) and do a split (2 colonies, both need feeding), or wait until spring and do a split (2 colonies, minimal feeding) and maybe another split later (4 colonies, dunno about feeding)? Assume the purpose is more bees, not more honey.

[Robo]

I agree that you should not do a walk away split with only one hive.   Not sure what swarm season has to do with this,  but if you want to go with data,  look at the availability of commercial queens.  Summer queens are in much more supply and the price is even lower from some sellers, tell me that supply is not an issue.

As far as split now or wait.  First of all I would only recommend splitting with a mated queen.  Secondly if you want to play the odds,  you stand a better chance of have bees in the Spring if you have 2 hives going into winter instead of one.  Yes it will require more feeding now, but your chances will be greater.