Make a split?

[Natalie]

I am trying to decide on whether or not to make a split with one of my hives.
It was a russian package from April and I hived it in an 8 frame medium lang.
It has filled out three brood boxes now and I just put on a super.
This queen has been amazing., I have frames with wall to wall brood.
I know when they all hatch the population will explode and I don't want them to swarm.
Having said that, they do not show any signs of swarming yet.
No queen cups, swarm cells etc. which I know by then they will have already made up their minds to swarm and I won't be able to do much to make them stay except a split anyway.
So the thing is, I am trying to decide if I should split them now before they show signs of swarming or if I should wait it out a little and let them get some more stores put away or surplus honey.
I don't know if that would be pushing my luck or not.
Thanks for any input. :)

[jdpro5010]

A strong hive is a good thing.  You don't necessarily need to split.  I would put a super or 2 on and try to collect some honey.  Keep a close eye and split later if swarm cells develop. 

[Joelel]

I am trying to decide on whether or not to make a split with one of my hives.
It was a russian package from April and I hived it in an 8 frame medium lang.
It has filled out three brood boxes now and I just put on a super.
This queen has been amazing., I have frames with wall to wall brood.
I know when they all hatch the population will explode and I don't want them to swarm.
Having said that, they do not show any signs of swarming yet.
No queen cups, swarm cells etc. which I know by then they will have already made up their minds to swarm and I won't be able to do much to make them stay except a split anyway.
So the thing is, I am trying to decide if I should split them now before they show signs of swarming or if I should wait it out a little and let them get some more stores put away or surplus honey.
I don't know if that would be pushing my luck or not.
Thanks for any input. :)

Do you mean they just filled three frames ? If you split you will need at lest 6 frames of bees and brood to be safe. Have you split before ? They won't usually swarm if you give them plenty of room so they don't get crowded.Always keep 3 empty frames in your hive. You can have 4 or 5 suppers high.

[Natalie]

Not frames, 3 brood boxes.
I have an empty super on them now, so they have plenty of room.
I would prefer to not split them and keep a good strong hive, the only thing that I was concerned about was that I see people posting that they make splits after they see swarm cells or queen cups and then it may still be too late and they may swarm even if they split.
Thats why I was wondering if I needed to do something before they showed signs of it.
I don't know when the swarm season supposedly officially ends but a friend of mine had her hive swarm  3 days ago.
I would like to keep some supers on this hive and see if I can get some honey off of them this year.
I think they are doing pretty well and should be all set for winter considering how much they are building but I will see how it goes.

[luvin honey]

Natalie--I'm looking at this same question. When you talk about 3 brood boxes, would that be the equivalency in size of about 27-30 topbar brood combs? By the way, good for you!! What a wonderful dilemma :)

[Joelel]

Not frames, 3 brood boxes.
I have an empty super on them now, so they have plenty of room.
I would prefer to not split them and keep a good strong hive, the only thing that I was concerned about was that I see people posting that they make splits after they see swarm cells or queen cups and then it may still be too late and they may swarm even if they split.
Thats why I was wondering if I needed to do something before they showed signs of it.
I don't know when the swarm season supposedly officially ends but a friend of mine had her hive swarm  3 days ago.
I would like to keep some supers on this hive and see if I can get some honey off of them this year.
I think they are doing pretty well and should be all set for winter considering how much they are building but I will see how it goes.

Natalie,Some people call a body or super, a box I guess,but I never seen a package of bees fill three med.or small bodies with brood in two months. If your hive is full and have queen cells on the bottom of the frames,yes they are ready to swarm,you better split. There is no swarm season,they split any time they have to.

Splitting a hive is something a beekeeper might want to do for many different reasons.  

The usual reason for splitting a hive is to increase the number of hives.  The beekeeper expands the business to make more honey or money.
The beekeeper might also want to split his or her hive(s) so that he/she will have extra hives or nucs to sell.
Another reason might be to prevent swarming.  You can prevent swarming by splitting a strong hive before it decides to swarm.  
Some beekeepers split their hives as a way to "re-queen" their hives.  You do this when the split hive has raised a new queen and she has begun to lay eggs. You find the old queen in the other hive and kill her. Then the split (with the new queen) is united with or joined (over newspaper) to the old.
Some beekeepers split a few of their hives, so they always have a few nucs on hand with laying queens, that they can use to unite with hives that need to be re-queened (newspaper method for uniting, See Topic 14).
Some beekeepers do the same thing to make their hives very strong before the honey season starts. The split is united back to the original hive to make one strong hive (Topic 14 uniting). This is done because one very strong hive makes more honey than 2 not so strong ones.
For a beginner beekeeper, splitting a hive is an easy way to make your business grow.  Start small and grow as you learn, or learn as you grow.

When to Split a Hive?

Both you and the bees must be ready before you split a hive.  The bees are ready when they are strong.  If the hive is strong, taking away some bees and brood will not make the hive too weak.  a hive should have at least 9 or 10 frames covered with bees and brood before you split it.  You will be taking 4 frames away.  You don't want the old hive to be so weak that it cannot recover.

The beekeeper is ready when he or she knows why the split is being done. You need to have the extra equipment ready.  You need to have a new queen, queen cell, or be ready to let one hive raise a new queen.  You need to inspect the hive and know that it is strong enough to split.  You need to know if it is queen right. It is not a good idea to split a hive while it is making lots of honey. The two small hives you end up with will not make as much honey as the one strong hive you started with.

Key Words:

Swarm – when the queen bee leaves the hive with many worker bees to find a new home. She starts a new colony. The old colony is left to raise a new queen.

Swarm Cell – queen cell made by worker bees when the hive is getting ready to swarm. Swarm cells are different from other queen cells. Swarm cells usually hang near the bottom bar of a frame. Regular queen cells are found in the middle of the frame.

Ripe Swarm Cell – an uncapped queen cell hanging from the bottom of a frame. It must have an egg, or larva, and royal jelly inside but not yet be capped

Why do Honeybees Swarm?

Swarming is the natural way for honeybee colonies to increase and spread. Swarming usually happens during swarming season. Swarming season usually happens at the same time as the honey flow.

Overcrowding is one of the conditions that causes swarming. This usually happens during a honey flow when the workers run out of room to store their honey and the queen runs out of space to lay her eggs. The hive becomes crowded, hot and has poor air circulation; the bees prepare to swarm. When times are good, the colony increases. If you do not give it extra room, it will outgrow its home. Then it must divide. Half of the colony will fly off to find a new home.
Another natural condition that causes swarming is an aging queen. As the queen gets older, the amount of chemical pheromone, or queen smell that she gives off, goes down. The workers begin to think that they need a new queen. They start to build the queen cells. Once the old queen has left, a new queen will emerge. She will have stronger pheromones because she is young.
So if your hive is:

strong and crowded
filled with honey and brood
hot, with poor air circulation
has a queen older than one year
if the weather is fine
if the flowers are producing lots of nectar then you should expect your hive to swarm.

How to Know if a Hive is Ready to Swarm

One of the earliest signs of swarming is an increase in the drone population. You may see this before you see swarm cells.

The easiest and surest way to know if your hive is ready to swarm is if you see ripe or capped swarm cells. These will be hanging along the bottom bars of the hive frames. There is a quick way to check for swarm cells. Tip your hive boxes up on one end so you can blow some smoke along the bottoms of the frames. Look for peanut shaped cells hanging down. This way you do not have to remove every frame to look for swarm cells.


Another sign that your hive might be preparing to swarm is if there are a lot of worker bees gathered at the entrance. They will not be foraging (collecting nectar and pollen).  This can sometimes look like a large beard of bees hanging from the entrance, and the base. If you see this during the heat of the day, it may just be because of the heat. If the beard of bees stays into the evening you should expect that a swarm will soon happen.

Something else you may notice is that the queen will slow down and stop her egg laying before she leaves the hive.  So if you see swarm cells and don't see eggs you can be pretty sure that swarming is about to happen.


How to Stop a Hive From Swarming

1. Give Your Bees Room:

One of the easiest and best ways to prevent swarming is to make sure your bees have enough room.  This is just good management.  If your bees don't have room to store honey, then you will lose that honey.  If the queen does not have room to lay eggs, then you will not have as many worker bees.  Your colony will not make as much honey as it could.

Most beekeepers in the Solomon Islands use two boxes in their hives.  One box is for brood and one for honey.  This works fine, but you must:

check your hives regularly.
harvest the honey before the honey box is completely full.
give the empty frames back to the hive quickly.
put some of the full frames from the brood box, up into the honey box. Put some empty frames from the honey box back into the brood box when the brood box is full.
give the bees more room by giving them a 3rd box . Put this box in between the brood box and the honey box.
2. Re-queen:

Replacing your queens every year is another way to prevent swarming.  Young queens usually do not swarm.  You will learn how to re-queen in topic 14.

3. Splitting:

One way to prevent swarming is to split your strong hives before they swarm.  Use method 2 from Topic 13 and remove the old queen from the hive.  Put her in the new hive or nuc, and leave the old hive to raise a new queen.

4. Artificial Swarming:

If you see capped swarm cells in your hive, and your queen has stopped laying eggs, then she has already decided to swarm and there is not much you can do to stop it.  The best thing then is to help your bees swarm so you do not lose them.

Set up a brood box on a base and hive stand with frames of mostly foundation. (Swarming bees make plenty of wax)
Find the queen and put her and the frame she is on into the middle of the new brood box.  Make sure there are no queen cells on this frame.
Take out half of the frames from the old hive and shake or brush the bees from these frames into the new hive.
Put these frames back in the old hive.
Destroy all but the biggest and best swarm cells in the old hive.  Leave the old hive to raise a new queen from these swarm cells.
Your old queen and half of your worker bees now have what they wanted, a new home with lots of room.  You now have two hives instead of one.  Leave the hives to grow strong.

Or
With both 3 and 4, (splitting or artificial swarming), you can wait until the new queen has started to lay eggs, kill the old queen, and unite the two hives with newspaper (Topic 15 Uniting). You are then left with a very strong hive and a young queen.

5. Destroy the Swarm Cells:

Another way to prevent swarming is to regularly inspect your hives and destroy any swarm cells you see.  This will stop your bees from swarming until they start more swarm cells.  You need to check at least once every week.  Do not wait any longer than that.  Your hive may have swarmed. This method is risky.  You may destroy the swarm cells and your bees swarm anyway.  Then your old hive is left without a new queen.  If the swarm cells are capped and the old queen has stopped laying eggs, do not destroy the swarm cells.  It is too late to stop the bees from leaving using this method.

You may make an artificial swarm – Method 4.

Note: Swarm cells produce very good queens.  You should be ready to use these swarm cells when you see them.  Write down which of your hives needs a new queen, and when swarming season comes you can cut out these swarm cells or take the frame with the swarm cells and use it to re-queen (Topic 14) the hives that you have identified.  You can also put capped swarm cells into splits or nucs.  

[Natalie]

Thanks Luvin,
        Yes my 3 brood boxes are 8 frames so they have 24 brood/food combs filled out and I just added a super. They have been going great guns, I have another hive that I got at the same time as this one, they are russians also and I got them from the same supplier.
These queens are laying machines, I have been careful to keep a close eye on them and to make sure they have enough room.
I am trying to stay one step ahead of them and thats why I didn't know if I had to split them but I would be just as happy to leave them alone.
I follow Michael Bush's advice on making splits so I know how to do it just wanted to double check with the experts here.

[BoBn]

I also started a package of Russians in the end of April that I picked up from Warm Colors.  I started them in a deep with 5 frames of drawn comb.  They are now in a deep and 2 mediums.  I may need to give them more space by the end of this week or next week.  There are probably 3 or 4 frames 50% capped honey in the top super.  I'll pull some of these up when I super and replace with empty frames.They are using (and building) on almost all of the frames.  I could probably divide mine and I would ifthis was their 2nd year, but I already have plenty of bees this year and would like to focus on honey.

     

[Natalie]

Its amazing how fast they build up, I also have some warm color stock I picked up a couple of weeks ago and they also took right off.
These russians I got from someone in my club on April 10.
Someone posted that they had never seen bees fill out 3 boxes in 2 months  not only did they build out 3 boxes, they did it from scratch.
All foundationless frames, they did not have any drawn combs to start them off.
Now I have brand new natural comb in all 3 boxes and they are starting on their 4th.
I agree, if it was the second year I may be more inclined to do it but I am not looking to increase my hives at this point.
I do have extra equipment, enough for two more hives on hand and I am not opposed to a split but just as happy with my ten hives.
One of the hives is a 2 queen system so I actually hived 11 colonies this year.
I also caught a swarm this year too.
It could go either way and I wouldn't really care, I know how to make a split but wasn't sure if I really needed to and figured I would see what people had to say.
I think I may even get a little surplus honey from these girls if the rain ever lets up.
But it is what it is and they are first year hives so I don't have my hopes up.
I am pleasantly surprised at the russian stock I have, you hear so many different opinions about them.

[trapperbob]

If you have three brood boxes of bees and brood go ahead and take one of the boxes and make a new hive with it. Just remember to buy a new queen to put in there if you wish them to stay Russian I have heard time and again when they make there own the new bees seem to be kind of hot I assume [yes there is that word] it is because they breed with what ever is out there and do not stay true to there lineage. I had a package of Italians do this a couple of years ago and that is what I did only I let them make there own queen. Another thing you can do is find the queen and make sure she is in the lower two boxes and put an excluder on and when the brood hatch out in the top box they will store honey in there place but you need to be very mindful because this could make them swarm if they think they are crowded to much. Also make sure you have a top entrance so if there are any drones they can get out. So there you have it bees or honey all you have to do is make a choice.  :-D